Marlow Sunset

[ChrisH]

A typical winter sunset shot from Marlow Bridge looking up stream of the River Thames. I would be interested in your views and for any suggestions on how this image could be improved.



3 bracketed images with a mild HDR treatment in Photomatrix. Hand held as my tripod had gone out with my wife in the back of her car.

[rob marshall]

That brings back memories. My parents liked visiting here when I was young. Isn't there a big weir there?
I find the river in the shot is too divisive, cutting the image into two and there isn't much interest in the foreground. I think a much more brutal edit takes us in closer, removes some of the rather uninteresting water, and allows us to see more detail in the houses and boats etc.

BTW. You original image was 1500px long. They get resized anyway on here. I think you had saved it as level 8 as a result of the size and that often leads to lesser quality on screen. I'd go for a smaller size with higher quality JPEG setting. Ask Donald, Dave or Colin about sizes.

[rob marshall]

Not sure what's happening above. Your original image was 1500px rescaled to 700px, and my edit is 1024px rescaled also to 700px. But in the lightbox mine is 370mm on-screen, and yours is just 310mm. Maybe it's the change is aspect ratio. Weird.

[ChrisH]

Thanks for your comments Rob. I take your point about the crop, although my thinking was the expans of water helped to give the feel of a mighty river.

You are quite right about the weir, which you can see on the image addressed below.

Marlow Weir just after Sunset

[rob marshall]

Thanks for your comments Rob. I take your point about the crop, although my thinking was the expans of water helped to give the feel of a mighty river.

What? You mean like the Mississippi? "Old Man, river..."

You are quite right about the weir, which you can see on the image addressed below.

Marlow Weir just after Sunset

That's the one. Very nice shot!

[JohnC]

Always a lovely scene at that location and having taken several passes between yours,Chris and Rob's crop I do actually prefer your 'mighty river' aspect. Lovely warm colours on the houses too.

[MrB]

Another wonderful Marlow picture Chris. The reflection of the sun coming towards the viewer along the water surface is superb, so I think that Rob has the crop the wrong way round. Crop the sky to one third of the image and give two thirds to the water - this makes the Mighty River look even more majestic.

Philip

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Chris,

When I first saw this a few days ago, I was immediately struck by the 'big river' aspect, so it worked for me, but I know the spot reasonably well, so maybe that makes a difference.

Now we're getting out of season, the river craft are declining in number allowing nicer, uncluttered shots like this. I even placed a thumb over the nearest one to see if it was worth cloning that out, but I'm undecided, I think it is probably better where it is

My crop suggestion would be 20% off the top edge, easy for anyone to try with browser scroll on the larger size visible when clicked. I think it enhances the river further still. (EDIT: I think that's what Philip suggests too)

Cheers,

[ChrisH]

Thank you for all your replies. The suggestions were varied but had one thing in common that the original image needed cropping.

I have posted below the two options, one with a river crop, he other with a sky crop. I also have posted a new sunset, which personally I prefer.







Marlow Sunset ll

[JohnC]

I think the last one is a great improvement and the reason (for me) is that you've now included the sun-drenched red brickwork by the boats which adds so much warmth to it and cropped out those houses on the left that weren't in the sun's light, the increased saturation of the warm glow sky and all this whilst still retaining the river as the 'big theme' which is what you aimed at originally. It just goes to show how important re-appraising a photo is. A great job.