Pebbles, sea & sky

[Paul Heester]

Took this image 2 years ago and Im still not sure if I like it! Was a grab shot on my phone, not sure if its competition worthy, what is everyone's thoughts?

01 Pebbles, sea & sky2.jpg (153.44 KiB) Viewed 87103 times

[Peter Boughton]

I think it might be that you have two pictures.

I like the titled aspect - the pebbles, sea and sky go well together - and are enough to make an image on their own.

The people and their belongings don't work for me - for them I would crop it with less pebbles and not as wide, but then I'm still not sure the poses are distinct enough, or whether a different viewpoint would have worked better, or something else depending on how you want to tell that story.

[Paul Heester]

Thanks for the critique. Im thinking I may remove the belongings (think it was a pushchair and dog as well) and maybe leave the man on his own? The whole negative space was what originally attracted me but feel a human element is still needed for scale.

I think it might be that you have two pictures.

I like the titled aspect - the pebbles, sea and sky go well together - and are enough to make an image on their own.

The people and their belongings don't work for me - for them I would crop it with less pebbles and not as wide, but then I'm still not sure the poses are distinct enough, or whether a different viewpoint would have worked better, or something else depending on how you want to tell that story.

[Mike Farley]

..... Im still not sure if I like it!

I suspect that you have answered your own question.

Good points for me are the different colours and textures, as well as the sky, sea and beach being positioned more or less on the Golden Ratio horizontal alignments. I also like the glints of light on the sea. Conditions seem to be very bright and I wonder whether warmer and/or softer light would have been better. The use of such a large amount of negative space, both vertically and horizontally, is bold. Unfortunately, it does not really work for me. In the western world, we tend to view images left to right but the figures are not really strong or interesting enough to bring my eye back to the left hand side. It is a good and unusual idea for a composition; I would be tempted to try it again when the circumstances are more auspicious.