HDR B&W Cabin in the Canadian Woods, critique please.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Roger Liss on January 27, 2012 at 9:17pm

Hi, Dennis...

Excellent shot. I love rustic and this old building qualifies well. I like the natural border of the trees although the shot feels cluttered to me. Unless you have nothing but time to clone out the canoe and all that junk on the left, I'm not sure there's a good way to clean the place up. In its own way, the clutter is part of the charm of this shack.

I noticed that your shot is slightly right leaning. There's a free download called ShiftN that's very handy in determining horizons and straightening shots. It's also excellent for fixing that weird lean that you get in a wide angle shot where a building on the right looks to be leaning left and those on the left appear to be leaning right.

Additionally, I felt that the shot needed a click or so of contrast. I took the liberty of downloading your shot and running it through ShiftN and playing with the gamma and contrast. See attached edited version and let me know what you think.

I'm new to this site and hope that you don't mind my commentary or that I downloaded your shot.

Roger

Permalink Reply by dennis sowell on January 27, 2012 at 9:44pm

No, of course not Roger, and I do appreciate the commentary,thanks very much. I am  always struggl;ing with finding the balance in my "minimalist nature" and not doping the imags anymore than I must,, and on the other side making the best image I can possible produce (with all of the tricks I know of and am still learning of). Can you relate to that dilema? I had considered taking more time with the image before posting today, but had run out of time alotted for it,(a realistic limitation we all have to deal with every day I think, in time available, yes?

 

 I have just now looked at your "rendition" and like the corrected verticle/level orientation. Thanks for pointing that out. I know CS- 5 has a somewhat simlar process, but am not yet practiced with it. And there are likely others out there! I had not heard of this one though, I shall look into that and include it in the repertiore onboard.Thanks again Roger! dennis Happy shooting!

  

Permalink Reply by dennis sowell on January 29, 2012 at 12:45pm

Permalink Reply by dennis sowell on January 29, 2012 at 1:09pm

Roger, there is a bit of adaptation in this version along the lines you suggested. I still struggle a bit with outright "Photoshopping" something in or out of an image, but sometimes it the right thing to do, and others I will not touch.

 

There's no hard and fast rule, "but lets face it" everything we do in digital Photography is "manipulation" technically, from the time the processor in our DSLR first fires and captures energetic signals from a sensor, it's then processed mathimatically by algorithems into something we recognize as a Photograph! Wow, we've come a ;ong ways since film, havn't we!

Its all being manipulated, from "digit one"! Tha'ts what Digital Imaging is all about! From there, it's a matter of degrees of maipulation and by what means, proicess, equipment, and style; Impressionistic, Painterly, Realistic Reproduction, B&W, and hundreds of other styles and versions, and then there is individual tastes and last but not least, that golden thing called "Artistic Expression". That's why we call it Art ? Lets get on with something else and see what we can do to learn and grow, huh?

 

Thanks again for the feedback, I did learn something. I hope to see some more of your work ,and return the favor soon! dennis