Critique required - B&W Holiday Photos

Greg · 27 Jul 2008 at 23:13

Returned from Cyprus a week ago. I'm after some critique on these photos, just wonder what you guys think!?

Taken mostly around Agios Georgios, and Lara bay if anyone knows where that is on the Akamas Peninsular. Wonderful place . . .

Thanks

Regards,

GRegR

A.N.Other · 28 Jul 2008 at 01:00

I like them but then I'm a sucker for B&W. The first two landscapes stand out for me from those ones. I'm not sure whether it's the JPEG compression or if you're added noise to them for effect, but the skies are looking a bit weird - maybe this isn't as bad on the full-sized photos.

domthecondom · 28 Jul 2008 at 13:06

i would preffer the first 2 in colour :O

fini · 28 Jul 2008 at 13:26

I find it really distracting that you've flipped the last one. Either remove the witting on the boat or flip it back the other way as that is what my eye's being drawn to at the moment.

Greg · 28 Jul 2008 at 14:29

fini said:
I find it really distracting that you've flipped the last one. Either remove the witting on the boat or flip it back the other way as that is what my eye's being drawn to at the moment.

believe it or not thats as is. The boat had the writing back to front! :eek:

Maybe I could actually flip it to make it look right!

Thanks for all the comments,

Regards,

GReg

Greg · 28 Jul 2008 at 14:30

A.N.Other said:
I like them but then I'm a sucker for B&W. The first two landscapes stand out for me from those ones. I'm not sure whether it's the JPEG compression or if you're added noise to them for effect, but the skies are looking a bit weird - maybe this isn't as bad on the full-sized photos.

I'm not sure either. It may well be the Processing that I've done on them using the actions in Photoshop.

I'll have a looksie at the originals and see what the deal is. I wonder if it would be better using the RAW files rather than the JPEGs.

I think as an experiment, I'll process both files exactly the same and see what the results come out as. Would you be interested?

GReg

A.N.Other · 28 Jul 2008 at 16:42

Greg said:
I think as an experiment, I'll process both files exactly the same and see what the results come out as. Would you be interested

Yeah, go for it if you'd like. Link some slightly larger images (800px or something) so the compression isn't as severe.

Greg · 28 Jul 2008 at 23:01

A.N.Other said:
Yeah, go for it if you'd like. Link some slightly larger images (800px or something) so the compression isn't as severe.

here it is buddy, on the left you have the RAW after conversion and on the right the JPEG.

Ok, i've taken a screen shot and saved it as a JPEG but surely this will suffice?

I seriously can't see *that* much difference, so it must be the processing that I'm doing that makes the noisy sky.

I still like the shot though, personally!

thanks for the comments.

Regards,

Greg

A.N.Other · 28 Jul 2008 at 23:31

What exactly are you doing to get that sky quite so strange

? The EXIFs are stripped, but I'm guessing from the location that you weren't using that high ISO (unless these were at night)?

Begbie · 30 Jul 2008 at 17:34

Im no photgraphier, but those photos make things look cold.

Being Cyprus and very sunny, would imagine they would look better in colour?

D.P. · 30 Jul 2008 at 19:47

domthecondom said:
i would preffer the first 2 in colour :O

Agreed, not sure what B&W adds to them. Is a comparison possilbe?

Raymond Lin · 30 Jul 2008 at 19:49

Begbie said:
Im no photgraphier, but those photos make things look cold.

Being Cyprus and very sunny, would imagine they would look better in colour?

Good point.

Personally they don't do anything for me, the only interesting one is the 2nd one but thats only because 1/3 of the photo is black and i am wondering if that is the beach of you somehow got too much vignetting going on there.

The rest are dead empty spaces, were there no other people around in Cyprus ?

domthecondom · 31 Jul 2008 at 13:12

Begbie said:
Im no photgraphier, but those photos make things look cold.

Being Cyprus and very sunny, would imagine they would look better in colour?

wow, amaizing qoute :O

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 31 Jul 2008 at 16:31

I like these

Nicos Rex · 1 Aug 2008 at 10:06

In the first one the sky is just wasted space. The stones and sea have some nice textures and I suspect that a tighter crop of the foreground would make a pleasing image.

The second one does nothing for me.

The third one is a bit "busy" for my taste, but on the plus side you have managed not to blow out the highlights too much and still keep some shadow detail which is something of an achievement considering the power of the Cypriot sun.

The last one has either not enough depth of focus or too much as the rocks in the background are distracting being neither sharp enough nor blurred enough. The reversed writing is disconcerting, and I would be sorely tempted to flip it.