Australian_Photography_-_March_2016_

80 AUSTRALIANPHOTOGRAPHY.COM

IMAGE DOCTOR

Lose the sky

Bernie Shaw writes that he spent a day

exploring Victor Harbor, in particular Granite

Island, trying to find images to incorporate the

sunset, granite rocks and causeway. He writes:

“I managed to include the pelicans but had to

take many photos as they continued to move

while the shutter was open during the six to

eight seconds needed for the misty water affect.

I was happy with my first attempt at slow shutter

photography incorporating wildlife.”

It appears that you wanted it all for this shot,

but more can be less. You have succeeded

with the misty water effect, and there are

some lovely subdued evening tones while

those rocks with the pelicans also make good

points of focus or subject matter. However that

man-made causeway really is a blight on a

naturalistic wildlife scene. It is like a saw band

that cuts the image in half and doesn’t allow

the outlines of the rocks and birds to stand

out as well as they should. A much plainer

background would have been more suitable.

Most of that vacant sky also doesn’t add

anything extra. You would have been better to

crop the sky when shooting to give much more

space in the frame to the main subject matter.

SAIMA’S TIP: If background content

impinges on the main subject, it compromises

the integrity of the whole image.

TITLE: Victor Harbor Pelicans

PHOTOGRAPHER: Bernie Shore

DETAILS: None supplied

AUSTRALIAN PHOTOGRAPHY MARCH 2016

What’s missing?
Nick writes that this photo was created on the way
to Kiama. He says: “Our plan on the day was to go
to the rain forest, but the weather was very bad,
with heavy rain until 1pm. Because of the rain the
visibility was low, and fog started rising from the
mountain making it look mysterious, so we parked
on the road to take this photo. With the wet f loor,
cloud covering and fog, it felt like a door into
another world!”
Sadly, due to the miserable weather, the
lighting in this scene is plain dead, with the result
that there is barely any colour in the sky, road or
grass. This scene needs something more, like a
primary colour – maybe car tail lights – to give it
interest. As it is, the main attraction is the shine
on the road and the fog and cloud is just a bit too
distant. If there had been better lighting,
I would also suggest making the leading line
of the road more dramatic compositionally by
shooting vertically so the road looks longer.
I am guessing you wanted to include as much
of the backdrop of fog as possible, but then you
have double the amount of dead foreground as
a consequence. It is not always easy to transfer
feelings and experiences into an image.

SAIMA’S TIP: Being dark and empty doesn’t
necessarily make an image ooze mystery. Even
with mystery or ambivalence, you need shades of
dark and light.

TITLE: Highway to Mountain
PHOTOGRAPHER: Ning An (aka Nick)
DETAILS: Canon EOS 70D, 18-55mm lens
@ 18mm, 1/125s @ f13, 200 ISO.