[matthew]

I already see two [updated: three] things that I need to fix on this photo.
And no, I haven't added any vignetting.

[Don Schaeffer]

Maybe a little cropping, not too much. I love the composition but there may be just a little too much empty water.

[Zig]

I dunno...depends on audience/output: I can see it as a really useful advertising shot with the spaces for text. A few little light glims...maybe a tad of "perspective shift" adjustment(?)...
..me leica

[matthew]

Don, I do see what you mean about the empty water. Much of it was darkened in post-processing, even though it was shot at -3ev, so I can back off the backs a bit and return some detail to the foreground. It doesn't show as clipped in Lightroom, but that has a lot more latitude than this jpeg.

Zig, you've nailed what I think this photo is good for: add a little motivational message across the bottom and it's perfect for the hallway outside of the employee's lunch room. :/ You're also right about the perspective adjustment.

So here's what I think I missed:

The tower is showing keystoning, and needs either Zig's perspective adjustment, or a barrel distortion correction. Perspective is the more likely culprit, as the camera is pointing downwards, but there's also a bow to the horizon. The lens is wide, but I'm not sure that it's that wide.

Once the distortion is fixed, the image needs to be leveled. It's a touch off in this one - maybe a pixel or two. I can feel it more than I see it, but it's there.

Finally, and this is the biggest gaffe, is that the crop on the right side is very badly done. I should know to never ever ever place a bright spot on the edge of the frame, and the clouds are cropped at a very inelegant part. While I like the photo for the negative space, it's always the bright areas that draw attention, and I handled it very badly.

...and I'm sure I've missed something else...

[Keith Alan]

That "spot on the edge" thing gets me all the time.
I usually clone them out rather than change a crop I like, but sometimes I just start over.
Or just leave it there to see if anyone cares.

Beyond the slight rotate I wouldn't change too much.
The sweep of the sky's color mirrors the water's texture, and this overshadows any horizon "hump" by being cool.
Any loss of foreground water moves the horizon down, and I don't want to see that.
It's valuable negative space that attracts the eye at first just to make sure there isn't something worth seeing, then balances the rest of it.

You can try the negative-value spherize trick but I wonder if it's worth the effort.

[Pavel]

Hmm, Matthew, I do not know the rules and so I go by the feel. I love this photo. I love the colours, the clever composition, great us of your uw lens. I like the distortion. This is not an architectural photo and I think the distortion helps make the photo work for me aesthtically. Ok, so I would get rid of the white dot. When you draw my attention to it, I agree that it would be better without it being so close to the edge of the frame. I agree with Don and I would consider cropping a bit from the bottom. A really exciting, unique vision, well executed, I think. Pavel

[matthew]

Pavel, Keiyh, thanks for the feedback. I decided that it wasn't worth fixing the photo that I posted above, since I'd already put it on my blog, and decided to move on instead. So here's version 2.1: I took another composition, fixed what I learned on the first image, and applied some more light tweakes in LR/Photoshop. (Create a copy, apply negative clarity, increase the vibrance. Open the new copy and the original in PS as layers. Use the negative clarity version for the sky and water, and blend to the sharper layer for the detail in the buildings. Save file and finish.)

Since then I've also applied what my evaluation group suggested—mostly to crop out and/or lighten some of the excessive black space at the bottom, which should come as no surprise. I had originally framed this as a 2:3 ratio image with less than the top half 'lit'.



My evaluation group was entertaining. After seeing several of My New Look, this one came up on the screen, and I was about the last guess for the author of the photo. I think it was my smile that gave it away.

[enviroguy]

Hi, Matthew! In my opinion, Version 2.1 looks much better. It has great immediate impact and superior visual appeal. Of course, Toronto is my home town, so I'm a bit prejudiced.

Regards.....Dennis

[Pavel]

Matthew, your technique is fabulous and so are the colours and everything and it is a great photo that I could never produce if I tried. I also appreciate greatly that you share the technique, which I will try.
It may be just plain jelousy on my part,but somehow I do not feel emotive content in this photo, even though I would expect this photo to have a lot of it, because of the subject lighting colours and all. To me this emotive component is important. Somehow for me your photos are "too perfect" and "too precise" and "too graphical" and "too premeditated" and in the process they seem to loose the warmth, emotivenes and immediacy that matter to me in photos. There I said it. Even to me this sounds pretty stupid, but that is how it feels to me. Pavel

[matthew]

Dennis, thanks. It's amazing now looking back at the one that I thought was good, but having had some time to rethink it, this new version is far better. (I'm prejudiced too, as it's my photo. )

... they seem to loose the warmth, emotivenes and immediacy that matter to me in photos. There I said it. Even to me this sounds pretty stupid, but that is how it feels to me. Pavel

Not stupid at all, it's a good insight and a valid point. And you're not alone in that, either: one of my photography instructors repeatedly called me "clinical," which wasn't really meant as a compliment. (Although I did get a good mark.) I don't really photograph from a point of emotional involvement, but rather from a desire to reduce things to component parts. It's an intellectual response, not an emotional one for me.