Brighton West Pier

[davidc]

Considering entering this in the monochrome competition later this year. Quite pleased with the actual conversion to mono itself, liked the mix of subtle tones in the sky/water and the sharp skeleton of the pier. But I'm not sure if/how to improve it further. I've tried cropping it and keep coming back to this one.

Thing is, I just *know* judges will say "oh your sky is soooo boring!"...

Thoughts/criticism appreciated!

exif -
f8
10mm
ISO 100
8 sec exposure


Brighton West Pier by cedarsphoto, on Flickr

[Mike Farley]

Dave

It is certainly an unusual photo and I can see that you have used a wide angle lens to fill the foreground and provide a sense of depth and perspective. You have a pleasing diagonal there with the left hand side of the wall/groyne continuing into the pier. For me, it seems unbalanced with too much space above the pier and to the right. I don't mind the horizon going through the centre of the image as it is essentially a picture of two halves. I would crop to get the groyne starting from the left hand corner and remove the empty spaces which don't add anything other than to contribute to the imbalance. This leaves some empty space to the top left which is unavoidable, but as the eye settles on the groyne and pier is not important. My suggested crop is attached which has a greater dynamic tension in my opinion. Overall, an imaginative shot, well done.

[davidc]

I prefer your crop, think I'll go with that.

r.e. the empty space, I think this is a wider question I have. Judges, without fail, criticise empty space. Sometimes I think having empty space adds to an image and having stuff everywhere can be distracting and take you away from the main subject. That was deliberate with this one, as well as converting to mono to focus the viewer on the leading line into the skeletal pier wreckage. Having said all of that, your suggested crop is better while still keeping some of the empty space I was after.

I just know for a fact a judge will say "oh, too much empty space top left, you should have had better clouds". Anyone care to take that bet?

[Mike Farley]

As with everything to do with composition, it depends whether empty space is adding anything to a composition, often by providing balance to another element. Some judges will invariably criticise empty space, the more thoughtful ones will consider whether it is contributing to the overall effect created by the image. As a general rule, it is probably better to exclude empty space and only include it if there is good reason to.

When I have an opportunity, I'll start a thread to discuss this topic in more depth.

[Simon Clarkson]

Nice photo David. Was this taken during the day? Did you use a Grad Filter on that 8 Sec exposure?

Have you heard of a program called Silver efex pro? Its a great program for the lovers of Mono pictures with lots of excellent features..

Regards
Simon
imagesliveon

[davidc]

Nice photo David. Was this taken during the day? Did you use a Grad Filter on that 8 Sec exposure?

Have you heard of a program called Silver efex pro? Its a great program for the lovers of Mono pictures with lots of excellent features..

It was taken at dawn, so earlier shots in the sequence show quite a dark sky in the full frame. This was a bit later, you couldn't see stars anymore, but it was still fairly dim.

I have heard of it but although I downloaded a trial, it somehow failed to work, the trial elapsed so now I can't try it again! I'll figure something out, but in the meantime I've been following the advice from a guy called Scott Kelby about how to get decent effects by tweaking curves. I've also used photomatix, normally reserved for HDR, to generate some interesting non-HDR mono effects too.

But silver efex pro is definitely on my list

[Mike Farley]

David

I can recommend Silver Efex Pro - since acquiring version 2 I have hardly produced anything in colour.

It works as a plugin for Lightroom, Photoshop/Elements and Aperture. If you select it from Lightroom, it creates a new file to which the mono efects are applied. With Photoshop, it is applied within its own layer. I have no knowledge of how it functions with Aperture.

There is a new version (2.006) that has been released recently, so you might be able to download and run it.