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Forum: Photographic Technique
02-17-2019, 08:29 PM
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BTW, everyone, note that Timotis is shooting the same scene as my crap picture, but from the bridge.
See how good his blue hour composition/crop is compared to another pic of his (presumably the same session) at: Melbourne Skyline, along the Yarra River - PentaxForums.com … the dead space is gone.
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Forum: Photographic Technique
02-15-2019, 02:15 PM
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Yeah, we were there for two days, so also got to enjoy St Mark's Square in the evening with almost no one there after the daytrippers had departed. Magical, very warm with a string quartet playing outside one of the restaurants.
We still had to take the last boat back to Maistre to our motel, it was annoying to discover that reasonably priced accommodation can be found in Venice itself, we would've done that instead. :)
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Forum: Photographic Technique
02-15-2019, 01:18 PM
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No worries, Mark, I've actually removed the phrase 'good' from my post above because it suggested that there weren't any crap photographers on the bridge during blue hour, and that good photographers weren't back on the day trip cruise ships or eating in restaurants. Sorry about that!
Yeah, I'm happy to be shown otherwise, but I don't think you can do a crop without going panorama that includes all that without the black sky. Presumably the other pictures you said you took at other times do get the sweep, the bending arc of the river, the convergence of the two rooflines, and interest doesn't just evaporate when looking at the top third of the frame.
The edit I suggested isolates what you said in your post was the highlight of the scene. As Brooke and lots of photo editors point out, you just have to leave out anything that doesn't strengthen the concept of the photo, don't try to 'fit everything in'.
Just to show that what's good for the goose is good for the gander, this is a pic I took the day I got my Sigma 85mm Art, and it's terrible. To try to fit in the buildings, this is the same mistake IMHO, and I've ended up with a black sky and mundane foreground.
It had potential if in the late afternoon there was a great sunset and some attractive joggers ran past, but as it is, IMO this is a dud. :)
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Forum: Photographic Technique
02-14-2019, 07:54 PM
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It must have been a magical time for you, Mark, it was for me and my wife. We'd never pay for a gondola ride again - it was essentially robbery - but do it once? Sure.
Now, the following is of course just opinion.
You were a good husband and father to be eating with your family during the blue hour, but the [Edit] photographers were on that bridge then, rather than midnight, because they didn't want that distracting black empty sky. If you Google image 'Grand Canal Venice', the shots are more like Biz-engineer's, the colours add to the whole (check out the Wikipedia one).
Now, you say that the point of your pic was that the reflections of the lights are outstanding in the dark water - and they are.
So, cropping gives a picture that is now different, we can debate about whether it's better, but it's definitely now more concentrated on those reflections in a beautiful setting. :)
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Forum: Photographic Technique
02-14-2019, 03:50 AM
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Sure, but this is landscape photography, so merging one exposure for the sky with another one for the buildings is a common play.
Similar to the problem of shooting fireworks with a town in the foreground.
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Forum: Photographic Technique
02-14-2019, 03:01 AM
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Timing's everything. If the sky had been black it would have been so empty and uninteresting you'd have to crop.
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Forum: Photographic Technique
02-14-2019, 01:24 AM
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Thanks, BE. I do like your thread topic, that goes beyond the dull gear talk we often lapse into. (For those that must know, this is the Sigma 35mm Art with a K-30!). :)
There's a lamp at the end of the pier which is giving that tungsten cast to the pylons closest to the camera.
I think colour's so important to a picture like this that in post I should have warmed up more pylons in the bottom left and corrected back towards blue the ones in the bottom right.
Then I would have had a field of blue, with a balance of a large yellow patch of pylons to the lower left and the smaller grouping of lights in the upper right.
By cheating in software, I'd have created a slightly different photo. Whether it was more likable is debatable, but it would have had more purpose to the colours - no accident.
I did a swimsuit shoot of a girl named Julia. Julia - PentaxForums.com
The first pic is just a candid to show the rapport that we generated - it's not always successful - but the second is the one I really wanted … a blue-yellow picture, with a summery retro film vibe that hipsters seem to go for these days.
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Forum: Photographic Technique
02-13-2019, 08:43 PM
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Yeah, standing around in the cold it might just seem black, but a long exposure reveals the remnant light is very blue …
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