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Landscape Critique Part 1

I'd like to introduce inside and john gringo, incredible photographer, educator in off cameras, we were just joking the other day. I do not know how one person know so much about so many cameras is this man does, but the fact that you teach and tie workshops around a new camera when it comes out, I'm just goes to show me hell, incredible. Your technical knowledge is, and I think that's really amazing. Well, I'm going to leave you boys to it because john is actually going to use light room to critique the images and johnny and absolutely don't need my help, so I'm gonna sit back and that you guys do this so enjoy, and I look forward to what you have to say about these beautiful images. Well, I think just before we even get started, looking at the images, I just want to kind of set this up for people at home that we've sent you guys have sent images into us, and we have not looked at him other than just we just downloaded him into light room right now, and I like to use light room to edi...

t because occasionally we want a crop and I want to see what that crop is, I'm very visual, and I know you're very visual, too, and I like to see what the finished product is. Great, I sometimes people send in small size images or we don't know if the colors are exactly right, but we're just going to go the best we can with what we got right here. It sounds good and we don't have names of who said these in, so you guys can remain quietly anonymous, I'll let you go ahead and get started. Yeah, well, initially instinct on this is is well, you know, I think it's it's a beautiful photograph took me a minute to figure out exactly what was going on, which isn't always a bad thing, you know you're I really wanders around the frame I was trying to figure out if it was a shading or digital effect at first, in the sense that you have this line sort of cutting through almost the middle of the frame, and and I realized it was either a fog or smog or something like that, and and I think the composition generally is really good, you know, the only thing that I thought maybe and it could be again because of the conditions of viewing it on the tv and so on are the resolution depending might have lost in detail with the highlights seem a little hot in here, but overall I think that the way they framed the seen and captured it is really good I think you know I think the highlights those jet charles up in the upper right hand corner a little hot on my screen as well sure you know at first I looked at this image and I'm like no thank you and then it's then I realized you know the element of the human element in here yeah that was going on and one of the things that you can use to judge a photograph like this is if you take out that human how good a photograph is it and I'm I'm a little thrown off by the tree that's cut off just barely in the top left hand corner I would have liked to have seen that I have a feeling that this was one of those things that happened very quickly and they were just glad to get one good shot out of there yeah yeah I see what you mean about the tree it's a little abrupt on it does really obscure the left hand side of the frame but the human element is definitely important I think it's a great point because it does it was also kind of bring it together and gives a sense of scale on dh that that I do like yeah all right let's go to the next one so I'm thinking this is lower antelope canyon yes then down there a lot of photographers it's a very popular place to go teo I have a shot a couple of shots very similar to this it's kind of hard to go real wrong in there yeah I think they did a pretty good job on this it's been done so many times it's it's hard to do it significantly differently yeah I agree with you on that you know it's and that's something in general we see even in the business I think a lot of people go into here and take just incredible photographs because again how can you go wrong with this place is exquisite I'm not really good photos but it's hard to do it differently and so I think it really it's just the impact of the place while always beautiful has been a little bit deluded by the quantity of images andi I think a lot of people tend to do is they equate their emotional response with the trip versus really looking at the image in its merit and the industry now that's again if you're talking about it from a business perspective but simply from ah fire our perspective or for the purpose of just capturing a great photograph for your own memories you know how do you how do you go wrong in that regard hard to judge completely again you know the highlights look a little hot to me in general let me going to the developed module real quickly let me see if I can pull back those highlights just a little bit you know, obviously that's too far, you know, that's back to where we were so let's just bring those down a little bit that's it helps. Think maybe how it's lit potentially, I think a little bringing up the shadows a little bit might help a little bit just to get that tone right now. Depends on you know what screen you're looking at. This is what you want. A color calibrated screen. We're looking at the original raw image. It gives you so much more to work with absolutely the sorts of things. But, you know, in general tonight's shot, uh, I know when I was there that this is a challenging place to shoot because in this particular one, you get like, this ticket for an hour, hour and a half or something like that. And I'd never been there before. And what I did is I basically rushed through as quick as I could because I want to go through a second time so that I knew what I could expect because it's really hard when you're going down a path and you have no idea. Is it good here? Does it get better or is this is good as it gets that's the life of on and so on? There are some places that are definitely better than others and you really have to pick and choose those this's a pretty good one there's I think a particular area called the corkscrew that a lot of people get to says it's got some really nice lines yeah yeah yeah it's ah that's the life of a photographer for sure I think you really identified my greatest struggle which is it must be better on the next thing you know a mile hike turns into a four mile hike but it is good to take it all and I think and really and really figure out what makes the place tick also time of day is super important here I don't think people realize some could go here for sunset this tends to be a more of a mid day light sort of place depending on the composition and wearing the canyon you are yeah if you want the sun to get down to the bottom of the canyon you really need you need to go there at the at the noon hour just about to get those sunbeams because they do have these god beams that come down in certain areas more an upper anall oh brother than lower and lower all right let's go to the next one I don't recognise this location have you ever I've never been there it's just amazing what a big game of sorts yeah it's like like grandiose keeps his eyes oh, well, look, I've seen a lot of work come out of there can't go wrong in these places, the national parks and gorgeous, obviously, this is grand canyon national park, not sure exactly which spot that is, to be honest looks to me a list, a little flat in general and a little bland, you know, when you go into such extraordinary places, I really like to just go after incredible, extraordinary moments in them because the view itself again, I think people often connect with the emotional response that they're having because this is my first time seeing it. And when I walked to the edge, whoa, look at how big it is, deep down and everything, but because you're having a great time doesn't mean a viewer who's, not there isn't experiencing it is going to feel that extraordinary moments you have to capture, in my opinion, something that takes it that extra notch. I always love the shots that, you know include weather in the grand canyon, whether it be snow clouds. I've seen some great farm shots, a cz well as, of course, lightning and those kinds of things, but, you know, overall it looks like it's, a sharp photo and nice time of day, it just feels a little flat to me. Yeah, I mean, they were there, they were there. And the rights they were in the right time of day because that cause that beautiful golden lights gonna bounce around and it's going to really add some gold culture color to it. Now the trade off to the right, it looks like it could be a really nice treat having the photograph off or not. And it's kind of right on the edge of are you in or are you out and it's? Probably it's probable that to the right side is just not a bit of interest it all on, and so they probably don't want to include it, but it looks like it's getting some nice light that's kind of like either I wanted or I don't want it and the whole lower left hands bottom left hand side of the photograph is just kind of space is space there's? Nothing in it is for text. Protect you really? You know, and I like the little crookedness of the tree up in the middle of the tree. Might make a really nice subject itself way worth exploring more. The other thing you notice. Look at the top of the frame there could be an incredible sky love and it's being cropped out for relatively gray for around. So for me again I probably would have changed positions to be honest but I think getting mohr of the sky and look at those texture that's why I was just I was grabbing the little indie filter here to add a little bit more color into the sky yeah you know obviously too much go back to zero and then just had a little bit more color because it's just a little too bright taking your eye out of frame man that looks good all right, let's move on. Okay, so I got a little technical thing here and that is is that sharp? Hard to say it's I don't think that trade sharp it's I'm not sure just that's why I filed a resolution yeah, it could be a resolution issue to me on a on a technical basis this looks like it was shot with a not very sharp plans yeah that's that's that's kind of one thing that I'm seeing right now. What do you think of the composition overall I would say I mean looks like showered up the field in the foreground maybe a long way it's way too much white sky yeah, I mean, if the tree was on the horizon and we could see the trunk of the tree then I think it might be different but the sky is just kind of bland yeah and the it's kind of weirdly out of focused foreground and when I say weirdly that I'm going back to that it looks like it's a lens sharpness because it's not a normal foreground okay the colors are very muted the tree I would like to have more vibrant ce where it kind of more pops your eye yeah right in there I like what they were going after I mean I like the idea of more of an abstract simplistic sort of you know, almost a fine art type of approach to this I think it's a single tree like that is is interesting and I like that the photographers clearly thinking about composition that said I agree there are does seem like there are some technical challenges with the right let me let me just do a little fix here I'm I am kind of a fan of odd cropping because here in the days of the internet were tied into exact eight by ten's and so maybe going with a more dramatic landscape should panoramic shot here because that sky is not really interesting it's not adding information we're not getting any more information down at the bottom it depends on how it's going to be used as well just going to say I could see an editor using that as a place for you know if there was if this was about you know the last tree of the syrian getty yeah and that was the title across the sky that might work but I agree and uses definitely one thing to think of it like the cropping you didn't know I was if I was there shooting it after shooting this I would have walked towards the tree because you can see how that's a valley that dips down to see if I could shoot this tree shooting kind of up at it so that I could see the trunk and the silhouette of the tree in the sky so we love a swing and a girl in a red dress swinging from the tree different in a slightly different direction all right next one all right so black and white we'll throw this in here do you shoot very much black to white don't not really not really certainly see a lot of it coming to the age easy but don't don't shoot it a lot tends to be more fitting for the final art world from a sale side I don't ever really license it on if we likes into very often it's a color image that was converted a black and white for some art designers need right but I think black away is still very very popular from the fine our world on dh they do very well pretty cool to see I think it's a fun thing to do to it can really change or make a break a photograph I'm thinking that I like the sky and I like the clouds but the ground there's a lot of blank space on the ground I know that's like mowed grass or hey um tree is not really I don't know iconic enough it's it's just kind of a very basic tree the ones in the background look more interesting their branches little bit more flavor flared out and so I think if you had access to this field roaming around you might be able to find a more interesting for ground and treat a photograph but I'm guessing that they either used a polarizer they've really darken the sky which which is very common and it's a very dramatic thing to do for black and white and I kind of like it in the photograph yeah, no, I did too I mean it's classic you know ansel adams with the red filter ana capitan right um dig deep deep sky highlights to me or a little disturbing I feel like they're out of whack with the rest of the image I think that goes from black too full way and then kind of this the whites on my screen look a little bit better so I'm going to give him a pass on that, but I on this screen I can see what you're saying yeah, I mean some of the ground step to yeah, these screens that were working with your slightly differently whoever this is I don't I think go ahead I love it. I think it's great. I think it's from what I can tell. I mean, I think sharpness is something to be looked at but I love the fact that you get a little bit of a ripple in here that implies ah, body of water. I get this sense that there's something bigger in the background I love sort of the fairy tale approach to landscape photography. And this makes me want to see more, makes me want to go beyond the horizon around the corner, through the trees. It just seems like it's the beginning of what could be an interesting photographic siri's. I just think it's intriguing and I think that the color combination in general is subtle it's a little bit abstract, but also very specific in the sense that you can make out this either island or is it something that juts out from a mainland? It appears very hard to tell, but I like that for me it gets my imagination kicked up a little bit. Yeah, I think this is the best one I've seen so far. It is I mean, it just personifies the simplicity. It's got surreal element to it and one of the things that I was I teach about but it's hard to explain mystery yeah, and this one's got mystery to it because it's like like when I first saw it it's like where is this because it kind of looks like a salt flat it does but then it looks like it could be a lake were in yosemite or something important I just think that could be anyone I mean this this really conjures up a lot of travel thoughts of life here knowing what to go to this location because this is otherworldly yeah, yeah, I think the compositions good too. I like where the horizon line is. Yeah it's not too much it's a little off center which is good on die like that the island is a little off center as well. You know, the good over rule of thirds in this case is yeah seems like it sounds or it's working it's working on this one so nice shot forget okay, so that's this is what I wanted to do with the tree with the other one I want to be able to see the rise and so that aspect of I like but there is just some funky stuff going on with the rays and I mean, I've never really shot like this it's what did you do? Uh it's like they shot with a hood that allowed certain raise tio cause a flare problem? You see this a lot people have a concept in mind and they're very married to making it work to sometimes to the teo teo, negative value in the sense of these razor, like probably trying to get these, you know, the god raises, they call him shining down on this tree, and meanwhile, then you've got this dark patch highlights blown highlights blown in the clubs and things like that is just process poorly, the cloud of right idea, right idea I and I'm not sure about the barbed wire fence. Yeah, yeah, it's a clash it's it was it was a thought that they had in there and it's almost lined up with the tree, but not quite yeah, and so were they trying to line it up because it's a little after the left, you know, either lining up don't like, I mean, if I was shooting it, I would definitely step up to the fence and just avoid that unless I was trying to make a statement with it, what would you have done to manage the sky and the highlights? And then how would you post process that? Well, I think the players well, sun is coming from the left, you could polarize it, but it looks like it's a white and a white enough angle that you don't want to use the polarized, because it's only gonna polarizing. Portion of the sky you might be pulling out the indy filters. Yeah, the cloud in the upper left just looks wrong because it's not a very big cloud, but it's just incredibly black. There are black clouds, you know, when you have storms for sure, but that is not a storm. Cloud there's a silver lining that was a medical. Like where they were headed. I'll give him, you know, I think the effort and the idea I think the concept of it is heading in the right direction. It just failed. And it's a technical execution. Well, this is where it's going wrong for me? Is it's starting to feel like an iphone app? Yeah, that they can like oh, this will make this is a filter that'll make it look good. Well, yeah, the filters fixing and I don't have a problem that I don't absence I think it's great to see people get engaged, but when you're trying to fix your problems with filters that's not good. Ok, ok, so I'm I don't know what this big circle is on the left. I feel like something that is going to be transporting from another planet in here I'm composition wise, we're all over the board here, we've got this tree going from into out of the left side of the screen we have something coming in from the right down to the bottom to me this does look like an interesting beach to shoot somebody does all these lines going everywhere but this is not the place to shoot the shot I don't think I want to say that the flare looks good photoshopped flare as I was added afterwards because I see it up in the top right and the top left in there's something about it that looks maybe artificial it could be completely wrong and it looks like it's just working in but even if not I probably would have reworked it just did not have a flare time of days middle of the day you know, I think look, I think if you're if you're looking for certain elements compositionally as far as having four brown something in the middle of something in the distance I mean I think it's again heading in the right direction it looks like an incredible place to photograph because it doesn't like something from another world to be honest with you it's so wild and gnarled and cool looking but compositionally time of day light color now that it's working for me yeah if I was there I would grab a telephoto lens I'm not sure if I can tell what lens they used here they used a thirty five sure which camera but it's basically a pretty normal shot I would put a probably grab a telephoto lens and I probably would have concentrated on this these elements over here because you have a lot of lines and you have some pattern and I don't know if there's something great in there but I think that's where the great shot is going to be some within there yeah, they got some people back in there and so shooting through this somehow might be more interesting with a slightly more telephoto lens all right, next step where is this don't recognize it myself it's like maybe canada um when you think I'm getting some very funky colors here it looks kind of normal on the left one third of the frame and then it gets very yellowish greenish going to the right and it's extraordinarily dark on the right hand side it's you know what I'm thinking what? I don't like a wildfire you have wildfire clouds yeah, they really were coverage when they get some weird colors yeah, it could be a wildfire and not a missed if it's not write this up just so we could see with yeah, it kind of looks like smoke to may but regardless, you know it's it's interesting I guess the fact that you really can't answer that question and that immediately you get kind of the, uh something something's up with it I think it's that's a good thing it's intriguing you know, if this was fog, I would want it or a cloud or storm or something, I probably would have just figured a better way to work it compositionally you know, not not horrible. I'm not a big fan of the four grand yeah, I'm very sticky with my dogs, you know, cause there's good ducks and there's bad dogs and that that whole tree in the water in front of the dock is not working for you at all. And this is one of the hard things because, well, that one's actually probably too big to go in and actually move out of the way on it and the stock is this isn't the right angle for it. Yeah, you know, I mean it's hard to say without really seeing what else they're working with, you know, I don't like the fact that there's sort of a rock getting up on the edge, I always like to keep my lines a little more clean, you know? We're in the sense of if the tree is going to be here at least it's not overlapping with yeah, they said that that piece of the puzzle right in there and all the way to do is drop the tripod just down about six inches yeah, and they could have fixed that up the other little where the doc connects up to the land in the bottom right hand corner way may not need to see that and so just, you know, just crop that out, leave that a little bit of a mystery, and we don't we don't need to see that. Yeah, I agree, but I just don't know that I want to know more about what's going on, and so this photo gets my curiosity but never really fully satisfies it in a way that leaves me magical. We're wondering or mysterious, as you said earlier, it just sort of like, is that a fire or didn't find something go wrong with photo shop? Yeah, I'm not sure this is the subject is for the and it's it's unclear? Yeah, unclear ok, I'm going to jump right in and just say sharpness ok, so we got some e I want to pull up some information here let's see I also sixteen hundred. So where we had I sa sixteen hundred? Are we afraid to bring her tripod out way? Probably maybe don't have a tripod because this we much better or just not paying attention and using auto eso seeing the low light and just jumping up to sixteen hundred, I'm guessing I so probably wasn't even a consideration necessarily. Unless trying to freeze the action for some reason or not but I would imagine a slower exposure would be there one hundred twenty fifth of a second there at f nine so I think I think well, wait could jump back and just go do we have a good subject here and we don't have we have a lot of empty space in the foreground we don't have great waves we've got something that's going on over in the left hand corner that I was here but I don't know what it's necessarily happening here I feel like the waves could be a subject matter brawling in or something but in general the composition is just feels off captain to me yeah, I think you just need to find a better place to stand because there's probably something good to shoot out there I would agree. Ok. All right, well, you know, recognize it looks a little arizona's texan could be colorado actually could be could be colorado uh uh, you know, I like a lot of contrast in my scenes to me again it feels a little flat could be the television that I think it's a little bit on the television I'll add a little contrast for you contrast her were you full of blacks down? Maybe even more so lets the contrast it could give a little bit more punch but because it just feels a little it looks a little bit on my screen better so pretty certainly I wouldn't mind camping right now tell you that well tents set up here on this island one of the things about the human eyes the first thing that we go to in many cases is the brightest subject which is this giant part of the river that's flowing outside frame here and so that is not helping us on dh if you can't have it at least get rid of it or move I would have moved and made it come right in on the other had it come right in and we're on the bottom exactly at this point I would probably take it out I think there's also that road yeah that's kind of a weird four by four track or something yeah I would have also probably looked get that out of the shot as well shot more across and up into the canyon towards the way again could be the tv better manage the highlights a little bit again right idea that I'm loving the color is loving the location certainly seems to have a lot of potential but maybe falls a touch short yeah all right next okay we're someplace called we have potentially interesting patterns in the foreground but we don't have anything that's really anchored us strongly there there's some kind of nice clouds going on on and this is a scene that needs to get work it's it's nice, but it's not selling me and I'm not we're not even doing commercial photography will have to sell me on anything, but it sold me. Look, I think people think when they go to see it appreciate it, son said. They think they've got a look right at the sun as it sets and very often, you know wasn't landscape photographer for the sun is square at my back, or at least a little off to the sides of my getting a shadow. So for me, I'd be more curious to see what was looking more of this direction and what kind of a composition you can get. I do like the photographer got low to the ground and tried to change the perspective a little bit. Could it, maybe even gotten lower might have been interesting to work it as a vertical as well, and work some of the lines a little differently. It reminds me of you know what you'd see in bad water basin in death valley national park on again, the color and the clouds and everything is great that's so hot and blown out in here, and either wait for the sun to go down all the way behind the trees you can really work amore balancing and not get those blown out highlights. We're just angle different directions he could really play up the colors that are in the sky again compositionally I agree with you it's sze also missing some hook in here you know there's a little area down here on the left I don't if you can see where my cursor is down here but there's a little snow drift and I bet you that there's more of these in that area I don't know what's causing this ridge which is kind of interesting it looks like a frozen lake pushing up or something frozen wave and so if you could find some of those interesting patterns in the snow or I don't know if it's safe to go out here on this lake out in this area but finding some interesting abstract pattern that has some nice lines that lead you into more of a payoff sugar on it in the photograph and so good place to be right time just probably cold yeah there's some sacrifices made their eyes their eyes getting out that okay I got that indy filter yeah let's see what you get out of that I love my andy filters anybody so are indie filters were going dark in the top half but let me we actually israel may have to pull up a double indy to lighten up the bottom it's dark right here but I'll go in and fix that anything with that color bounds on this yeah this this this looks like it's a j peg that's been emailed around a few times and we compressed the file that we're getting here doesn't look like a really good clean rough I'll but once again let's just go back to subject it's an enjoyable lake to go to is that mono lake you know it looks because of the levels so low it's hard to say it looks like a california location on fish um yeah the lake level being lows interesting it lacks a clear subject it's taking a nice moment and it doesn't you know, if we had again wishful thinking in a world where I can design things really thinking of them you know boat a bunch of roeder's their canoes or something happening in the middle just a kind of add an element to it might have made it might have helped it that's ah you know I don't mind the trees and foreground it's at least something it's not interesting to me though on also feels very blue in magenta you know what this feels like to me is it feels like it's a viewpoint a viewpoint that somebody hiked up to right and these things are the viewpoints folks in general in my opinion are notoriously terrible for taking pictures you go up to this high point they have this wall there and people take a picture of something that's five miles away and it's kind of flat at least we do have this foreground here and it could be worse without it yeah well you know again it's not like it's an amazing but I also think that the decision included versus cropping it out it was it was a better choice because at least it gave us some layers through effective and they have some color down here unfortunate that the strongest of colors is down in the very bottom right hand corner I notice which is where you want tio okay let's move on okay, so wondering is this that's just that's just very days that's exactly what I was thinking now I don't know you know how you feel about fish eyes I know sparingly they have to be use sparingly and I really like somebody who can use a fish I like this where the average person wouldn't go oh that's weird what's wrong with it I mean this is really good use of efficient and so they used it the and what they did is they put the horizon directly across the middle so that we don't get the curved horizon so the average person who looks at this is just going to like wow that's kind of interesting I just gets no bridge or something and so nice little viewpoint you know through looking through you know they probably had to climb up in there from the bottom of a little sketchy uh, yeah, that's not what I said, you know, something's up with color again, is that maybe the tv and now it looks like I'll be honest with you, most of the colors that we have gotten just don't know, they don't feel that they don't feel right. They don't feel right refusal to de saturated to me. Um, this is that there could be more color and especially in the ground that over here, so yes, he already it looks to be a little bit better. I can actually see this being an image that would definitely be a good seller for, like, travel magazines, road trip, type of magazines, that kind of thing because it does seem to capture the essence of a place, and the framing is really good, that color is a little off, but, you know, of course, assuming this is someplace specific cause you don't really get the sense of clearly, you know where you are, right? You know, looks like utah somewhere, maybe, but if I was shooting it, I would try to jam myself even further up in the corner because I want to get a little bit more solid area along the top of the frame has gotten really thin there, yeah, and this is almost like a christmas christmas wreath. That's gotten really thin at the top, and we wanted I want to have a solid circle around there, and I would maybe try to position myself up a little higher so that that tree came up a little bit higher into that curve. Very on the top left just to fill that up a little bit more, but in general, they went through some work, and they came back with pretty there. Shot. Yeah, I think the raw materials are there for the most part. I mean, I agree with you. Maybe a little bit more up there, but, you know, I think I think they did their homework and paid off. All right? We got some real border action here way you don't need it. We got we got some heavy processing on this. How much do you process your images? I mean, not a lot. I mean, what's, your definition of I'm done with the image. It looks good. Now, a little contrast. Little saturation. Maybe a little bit of vibrance. Maura lessons for storing things in the raw file. I almost always then adjust. Make sure my levels of history graham's look good, baby, little dodging and burning that's, pretty much the extent what's your balance between what looks good to your eye and what was reality has to feel natural, you know, it also depends what your end result is tio desired end result you know, if you're going for fine art, I feel like go for whatever you want I've seen images like this do really really well is greeting cards especially if their flowers and their very process that they have borders and effects to them it could be bad not my thing, though as a photographer, you know? So for me this feels way over processed I think it's interesting in the sense that I also it feels like, you know, hobbits or something live here in the hills, you know, I think the borders immediately or distraction it's like you should be guiding my eye, it looks like they're trying to guide my id in the middle of the frame and instead it's being so attracted to the dark on the edge that it's pulling me away out of the world that they're trying to create a bit in general, if I if I have a sort of a natural feeling of I don't know where reality began and and I'm sorry where the reality begins and where artificial ends to me that's sort of a red flag, you know, for processing, what about you? I haven't journalistic background have siri journalism and as soon as an image goes past that tipping point of they've gone too far, I'm completely lost and when it moves into that art world, I don't feel I don't feel confident judging those because a cz you say this could sell and I would just be there scratching my head going okay, I never would have guessed that one from you know, coming up more my traditional landscape you wait like much over processed compositionally I don't like where they position the camera and the road off to the right there either more or less but it's they should embrace the road more is my opinion they probably don't want to walk down couldn't walk down whatever the case may be may be unstable ground I would have just embraced the road more you know, if there was a nice curve in the road, you know, like red above in san francisco there's a great road that goes up and has a huge curve on it everybody photographs, commercials there and stuff you know, if you had one of these kind of epic car commercial curves right there right with a car and you know your convertible in a bunch of people in herself with you on that if I would have a tricky one yeah, I hear you on the journalistic thing I'm one of those don't had don't detract from the scene other than dust you know, every now and then a bird might get zapped by accident thinking that, you know, I think you got to be really careful with that again, depending on your end result, you know, if you're happy with this, like, I think there's a lot of things that are kind of cool about it. Compositionally I mean, yeah, the road is an embrace, but I still like these elements in here. I was just like, process. I would like to be shooting right there very much because, I mean, they got the clowns they got really interesting, layered hills, they've got good content. Yeah, I guess it just wasn't toward taste. Yeah, not all the way there, okay, okay, we got a lot of country and so a good time to be out photographing right before a storm. You get these dramatic clouds and they've got some interesting light going on on this field of something I'm a little I get it it's got clean lines, good symmetry, cool clouds, a little bored it's not really holding my attention. I don't think it tells a story there's, no grapes or if there are, I can't tell, you know it, zook, it doesn't feel, you know, I love the glad keeping my interest hey we get a good sense of place well started since I mean there's an interesting line of trees I'm not a big fan of the grass down at the bottom yeah, I'm on the fence about on and I don't know cropping it that tight on the fence you know I probably would have approached it maybe even with maybe a zoom if there were grapes and tried to compress the trees in the background you are with a zoom lens or something I just yeah I don't know it's just need to be angry rethought again a good clean lines you know it's obviously the horizon line straight good to be paying attention to those things but not really holding they might have gone a little too far on the sky because that's just getting really really dark you never know what could have been really I've seen some dark skies sure you have to yeah it's hard to tell yeah it's very hard it's very hard to judge this time because in the other in the other critiques I didn't watch all of them but I mean a lot of times they're working in a studio and this like we'll just move the light here right and move the light over here and here it's like well, we don't know exactly what it was like and what it was capable of there's so many combinations out there do you think that I really want to see that road in the bottom left hand corner I want to get out to the left and I know this is probably one of those areas that there's not a lot of options for where you shoot but if the road you know continued along you know, I really want to see more of that line rather than going into the mountain and coming out I feel like there's a red it's the right idea again you know, I like that you see the road it's used compositionally it's not trying to be cropped out if anything it's actually the focus of it sharing the experience of where the jeep is going, like with the jeep falls obviously, you look a perfectly well thursday, right on the mark bullseye. In that regard, it works. I mean, I like the rocks down kind of on the middle lower section, but it's, that road in the bottom left where the bright sun is on it because your eye goes to bright areas. I know this is like a weird crop right here, but this is where the tones look better to noontime today is not working for me in general. I mean, look, if you want to take a picture and you're there when you're there you're gonna wait all day to go redo this or whatever you know, but I probably again like where they head out probably cut it just because I would have opted for something with a late day more dramatic light it kind of feels like some somebody is one of cruz and in their four by four and they said this is a really cool road get a photo of me driving around this corner here because it's it's very dramatic because you don't make a wrong turn there no, you know, probably prefer not to all right, ok, so we're going we're going dreamy here too much very, very romance. Marini to romance novel feels artificially soft yeah, I don't know this is not this resolution. Why sharpest wise? Yeah is it has been softened I'm assuming it was either softened or they just came out of a heated car there it looks like a fog plan. They said some conversation on your side element the bright, the bright the whole bright top is not working for me because we've kind of lost it all up there. I mean, this isn't a light room class and I'm just going to throw in teo yeah, identical bottom it feels in general in here so there's information there and this is obviously not the way to clean it up way so we can see a little bit about what's going on up there it feels kind of like that this forest the section I get what they're going after feels kind of messy in general so you know there's piles of leaves and branches all over and something will break it clean I just probably have opted to not photographic or not in that spot maybe look for other places or quite frankly with that maybe just the water itself even though if you want to automatically be attracted to water I might not have voted off the water but look for flowers, wildflowers anything else to be used the trees and the fog you know on their own on not always going to longer fall I think people very easily here like way must photograph because it's fun and I get it but maybe not necessarily the best of you know it's not a very big waterfall but you know there's certain areas where there's just not much to shoot it's like that's the one thing I hiked up here I'm going to shoot something the very the left side of the frame is very sloppy and there's just a lot of things hanging him again too yeah, that like the twig down here on the right hand side so let me ask you a question if this picture was perfect except for this one twig would you move it? You know I personally wouldn't I would have no problem moving it really it's going to be gone at some point it's not really if somebody comes back and in a month it's probably gonna be gone anyway so you're fine different people with different perspectives it's a personal choice I mean I remember I was actually on assignment with national geographic photo editor and I moved a jar into the light and she's like you just totally violated a journalistic rule national geographic said things that are notorious for setting thing I'm not going todo heard some pretty amazing stories of things that they've created okay feels a little like a small town in alaska but it's not one that I recognize away is that juno no no it's way too small pretty yeah it has a bridge it's kind of interesting well, I've got three things for you on this hd and are way too much of it are you not in hdr? I'm not if I can really see I mean I actually you know, after my last course somebody made a suggestion about thirty two bit emerge and I've been playing around with that a little bit more and I like that you have that information there but I feel like the tone mapping can be very easily go overboard to the point where immediately it feels more like look if I wanted to get into painting I would have painted you know I'm a photographer because I want something to feel authentic and then I'm capturing an experience that's, that's real, and I want to convey that that feeling to somebody know granted everything is an interpretation, and we won't go down that road. But to me, this feels so evenly live without ever getting that punch that it really just some blacks contrast, something would at least pull it back a little bit more. It just feels over processed. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of hdr, and I'm a I'm a little old school and I understand where they're going because they're taking photography and they're trying to make it more realistic in some ways or more the way the human eye picks up certain things, you don't lose the detail. Yeah, you know you're losing the detail, but just because you're going that direction doesn't necessarily make it better if it did. The only thing that we would ever look at is three d video, because that's, the way we see the world and so still photographs kind of have their own look to it on each they are is deviating from that kind of more than some of us are comfortable with. It's a quick deviation, there might be a day well, this is what we're used to yeah, but we've go when you go right to it. Yeah it's a little much it's just like when the neutral density filters you know came out and however many years ago when people started using them right long time ago you know it was you know, people been like I don't know about that andy filter thing not just getting I don't know that okay let's let's just set the hdr aside sure. Okay, forget hdr opposition subject it's it's a little unclear it's kind of, you know, like, well, this is the town we stayed out or this is where we live the bottom left is a little sloppy for me I would have maybe shot a little wider angle potentially yeah, I might have tilted the camera down a little bit more because I don't want to see more yeah, I want a little bit more here but not much and you could also get rid of whatever you need you can lose in the sky because I think what they're trying to do is keep this snowy mountain in here yeah and I think you can do that and get a little bit more of the town and get more of this valley leading out again hdr side I think from a travel magazine perspective, if this was a destination town I could see this being an opener where I don't know if it's juno are somewhere in finland but I could see again something being filled in so many thinking from the editorial side of the world I do think I could see it being used but again I don't think with that level of processing you know, I think the crop on the topside is perfect the bottom side needs to be brought up it might make good vertical potential vertical right in here yeah, I would have at least shot a vertical option issue two options of everything are winning winning shot kind of thing like this is great I do ever try to yeah, I I'm putting together I have a whole class coming up on nature and landscape and I have a whole section that goes into vertical versus horizontal and I think it's very funny because if you go to print something on your computer this is landscape and that is portrait and I'm like, well, I shoot a lot of my landscapes in a vertical fashion and so I mean, I've been shooting a lot with tell shift lands on I've been getting because now I can reach from something right in the foreground to something in the distance and aiken stretch that with the vertical and so I'm shooting a lot more verticals than I have in the past and so from a commercial side there's a whole different perspective as to whether you need it or you're not needed it because, you know, covers and spreads and gutters and all of those sorts of things. And I don't think there's a clear answer on any of them. Go, to be honest.