Landscape Photo Competition 2014 No 2 : Judges Critiques : Page

This looks like seaweed farming in Indonesia. It is a lovely shot, well done. I love the lines from the seaweed plantation and the colour of the water. The woman in green fits in so well at the edge against the darker patch of sea. Nice and refreshing ☺

What an experience it is flying over the Victoria falls and the great Zambezi. It is interesting to see the shapes made by the current from above and the rising spray which brings the wet, lush, greener vegetation to the edge of the falls. This photo has plenty geographical interest and is nicely taken, it just lacks something extra to take it through.

Nice composition but isn't the sun too burned out for comfort? You have a lot of visible flare... It looks like a great location, there must be something better to do here.

If this had been on film it would seem the lab had messed up the developing pretty seriously. I wonder what have you done to it? Most often a nice photo needs only very subtle intervention, it shows a beautiful scene and atmosphere that you really did behold and the viewer is sucked into the image, emotions tingling. You cannot create a beautiful photograph with just photo programs. The original doesn't look so bad either.

Difficult to make an original sunset but you have done pretty well here. Nice fresh tones bring a feel of the evening and the shapes in the white sand and grasses really set off the sky. Shame you have some flare left and right…

This has the same problem as photo n°233. The highlights are very burned out and although that bright white may get plenty “wow” comments when seen on the computer screen it is basically a burned hole in your photograph, there is no information at all in those areas and technically speaking this is incorrect. This would have been nicer if you could have caught the sun partially behind the clouds…You would still get the star burst effect but would greatly reduce burn out and flare.

I am sorry but I don’t understand this one. Here are the competition guidelines: “Landscapes, panoramas, mountains, hills, fields, forests, cliffs, rivers, lakes, coastlines, seascapes, etc. Natural scenes anywhere in the world showing nature at its best.” These guidelines can be read just below the competition title and should be followed if you are trying to compete with the other entries. There are several off subject photos every round. Be careful!

Well you have tried pretty hard to make an original photo and you have combined several techniques to achieve that. You have combined a quite nice composition, long exposure, flashlight and considerable digital manipulation. You are creative and need some practice. First of all when you compose your photo (on a tripod) it is important to have a straight horizon, the best way to ensure that is to look into your viewfinder with your head straight. Here your horizon seems to be sloping down to the right. Flash, especially if you are only using one, never carries very far so is difficult to use effectively in landscape photography. Here your flash creates a harsh light on the foreground rock, with an equally harsh shadow (because there is only one of them) and that light quickly fades in the short distance. Back at your desk you had a few exposure issues which you tried to resolve. I would suggest you try again, your idea is good and there is nothing better than trying over and over with a complicated subject like this. Maybe a lighter original exposure where the rocks remain darker all over would give a more natural result, the sea would be lighter… Or else you could try several exposures if you want to dabble into the world of HDR. Or perhaps you want to play with artificial lighting and you enjoy the long exposures, you could consider long exposure and light “painting” with a spot light/torch/flash…Enjoy.

This is a fantastic canyon and a great location for photography. (That is once you get down there!). And this is a fairly sound effort, you have found a good angle to reduce most of the flare from the strong light through the gorge, you have applied some density to the lighter top of the gorge to darken that a little (but I wonder what tool you used, the result is pretty noticeable and black). Ideally this photo should have been taken with a neutral density grad filter to darken down its upper half, or for the more digitally minded amongst you, in two or three frames with different exposures. (If you use a steady tripod you can take several frames and then use them as layer masks in photoshop or for making an HDR image). You have strong lines leading into the image which is good and a nice slow shutter effect on the water but a stronger foreground subject would have made this much better, those stones on the left for example, would be great much closer. So a lower view with more attention on those lovely reddish stones and/or some leaves. The extra dimension makes a photograph more of a story.

So much warmth for such a cold scene. The portrait format suits this well, drawing those lines upwards across the sky. You have framed the birch from low so that it stretches its silhouette into the sky making such a simple but loveable image, perfectly sharp all over. These trees are beautiful and you have given this very solitary one all the place it deserves in this empty landscape of scrubs and of cold. Your composition is nicely divided, you have used your wide-angle lens to bring depth and a grad filter to give the sky those warm tones and colours while keeping the snow so white and cold. Effective work, well done, you win this round!