Beach Huts

[davidc]

I'm planning on entering this for next week (Sept 19th) print competition, if someone can give them to Chris on my behalf I'd appreciate it. I'd do it in person but I'll be in the Cayman Islands

Any comments/critique welcome - don't be shy!

What I liked personally - the bright, jaunty beach huts and the contrast with the utter misery of the great British weather.

exif - from memory.
3 shots @ approx f4.5, approx 1/250 - 1/100, likely to be at 15mm. Merged using Photomatix


Beach Huts by cedarsphoto, on Flickr

[davidc]

As some of you might have guessed it's an HDR image in a similar vein to some Mark Blundell showed us in last night's meeting. I try to keep the effect subtle and tend to use the technique on days where it's miserable and overcast, making images flat and drab. By using 3 or more shots to boost the dynamic range, it comes out with more punch and is a more accurate reflection of what I saw.

I know HDR tends to polarise opinions so I'm curious what people think? Personally I try to avoid the "vomit of colour" or distracting halo effect bad HDR normally yields. Like this ->


Rock of Cashel - HDR - Colour by cedarsphoto, on Flickr

[Nina]

Hi David. HDR is like Marmite. I only like it when it is subtle enough to enhance color and texture. I think you achieved that with your original post.

[Mike Farley]

Well done on avoiding the over saturated and flat HDR effect, which rarely works well. Subtle is always better.

I think that there might be too much foreground and I find the grass going out of the image a bit frustrating as I want to see where it ends. I also wonder if we need the partial beach hut on the left which is a bit distracting. My suggested crop moves the line of huts away from the centre of the image and ends them more towards the bottom right hand corner. It also makes more of the dramatic sky.

[davidc]

Interesting - when I checked your reply last night from my phone, I agreed the crop I had posted looked very strange indeed.

However, checking again today from work, I can see my original crop doesn't have the grass stopping at the right of the frame and, like your example, you can see the sand to the right (avoiding the grass "going out of the image"). I think this means that your monitor resolution might not be quite high enough to display the entire image, the work monitor is 1280x1024 and I can see the entire image. If monitors are set to 1024x768 you won't see the whole crop.

r.e. cropping the left-most hut out, interesting example. I think it probably does improve it.

Sadly this, and all my other images posted so far, are now printed so it's too late to change them

[Mike Farley]

David

I can assure you that my monitor is correctly set up and I saw the entire image, which I needed to do to make my suggested crop. In your original, the grass seemed to be petering out and I was left wanting to see where it finished. For me, it either needed to be cropped higher up or shown in its entirety. It did not seem to be adding anything and there was too much foreground that was of little interest, so I cropped. This also gave the image a better balance as I described in my original post. Composition is largely subjective, so neither of us is necessarily right, just as neither of us is wrong. Let's leave the casting vote to the judge.

[davidc]

Out of interest, did anyone happen to remember what the judge gave this in terms of score and comments at the 1st print competition of the season? I couldn't attend because I was on holiday but had brought the prints in the week before.

[Nina]

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! I forgot to enter them for you David. However as only 5 out of 6 competition results count towards the total mark I hope you won't be too upset with me.

[davidc]

Not to worry, and sorry I didn't mean to make you think it was *your* responsibility (it wasn't!), I'd left them near the print display board thing in the hopes they'd be picked up. As you say, only 5/6 count, and it also means I don't need to stress about the next print competition