Fire on the Prairie

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Nature Photography Image Critique : One Thread

I'm just now getting into photography and this is one of the shots I've liked the best. It was taken with an Olympus C-2020 Z digital camera. Settings unrecorded. JPEG compression seems to have made it a bit blocky...

-- Eric Portis (eportis@uni.uiuc.edu), January 08, 2000

Answers

I think this could be improved by cropping out most of the black landscape at the bottom. Since the subject is the clouds you only need a very thin strip of the landscape on the bottom.

-- Billy Gorum (Herphoto@aol.com), January 08, 2000.

I agree with Billy, you might also cut out the black strip at the top as it distracts from the fire in the sky. Pat

-- pat j. krentz (krentz@cci-29palms.com), January 09, 2000.

I would respectfully disagree with the previous comments, as I feel that the black border sets a sense of scale for the clouds - how they stretch down to and beyond the horizon. Without the trees and land, the image might be assumed to be a zoom of a small patch of sky. As it stands, it appears to be a broad shot which has a certain appeal. However, digital croppings are easy and this might be a 'try it - you might like it' case.

Chris

-- Chris Pencis (cpencis@yahoo.com), January 10, 2000.


Sorry Chris, I'll oscillate back. If you trim the darker clouds at the top, and _some_ of the dark ground, it looks quite good. No-one was suggesting cropping the trees or all of the ground. Converts it into a more "panoramic" format though, which might not lead the eye the way you want (for a sky shot). Play with it and see.

Given the image size and JPEG artifacts, it's hard to see any technical faults with the image. Not bad in all.

-- David Burren (davidb@osa.com.au), January 12, 2000.


Thanks all for the comments. I never thought of cropping out the land at bottom, and so included the dark clouds as a sort of balance. But I agree, if you cut off much of the (unneeded) black land, it does look a bit better. Again, thanks for the comments.

-- Eric Portis (eportis@uni.uiuc.edu), January 13, 2000.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ