Mousehole harbour - An Artistic attempt

[ChrisH]

Bearing in mind the association of Mousehole with both the Newlyn and St Ives schools of art, I thought it would be fun to try and create an image with a more artistic feel. I have employed HDR (which I don't use very often) to try and exaggerate both colour and detail. My apologies to those who dislike HDR, however to those that do I would welcome your comments and any suggestions on further improvements.

[Radu Dinu Cordeanu]

I like it.

[Geoff F]

Everything is placed correctly, Chris, and the Newlyn group liked bright light and deep colour.

I wonder if it would be possible to keep all that but back off slightly on the highly sharpened effect?

[wommby]

I've just started playing around with HDR and I really like it. I do agree with Geoff in that it may be a little over sharpened.

[ChrisH]

Thanks guys. I have go at reducing the level of sharpening and re-post,

[Donald]

My apologies to those who dislike HDR,

As you know, I'm one of those who are in the 'not-so-keen-on-the-overcooked-approach' group.

However, what you have done is deliberately set our with a vision in mind that is informed by a school of art. That, in my view, is commendable and, given my very limited acquaintance with the schools referred to, you have produced an extremely good image.

I think Geoff has called it right in terms of the sharpening, although this is not an issue, for me, when the image is viewed at the largest possible size on the lightbox. A good piece of work.

[ggt]

Great angles and balance! I like the beached boats concept a lot, very unique. My only concern is the blue from the sky seems to be saturating the boat/beach area. I think it's distracting from the other vivid colors you are trying to show us. I don't know if you can lessen it while keeping the deep green bottom of the water near the, uh, dock? boardwalk? damn? I don't know my beach vocabulary.

Why are the boats on sand?

[Steve S]

A very nice image chris, but for me, the blue is way over cooked.

[ChrisH]

Thanks for the input, I will certainly give all your suggestions a go.

Gretchen - this harbour is tidal, that's to say it dries up twice in twenty-four hours, high tide and low tide being achieved approximately one hour later each day. This shot was taken close to low tide hence the fact that the boats are sitting on the sand.

[ChrisH]

Here is my edit. I have marginally lightened the blue sea and sky and also marginally decreased the sharpening. Again I would welcome your views.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Chris,

I'm like Donald - I don't normally like this ("HDR") and my initial thought seeing the little version inline at 700px was "yuek; it looks like one of those nasty 1960/70's super-saturated postcards" - I'm sure you know the ones I mean, available throughout Europe - and please don't be offended - it gets better

Then I hit F11 to make the browser paraphenalia go away, clicked for the Lytebox and "F" to make it 100%, and my opinion is quite different - now the wide angle view feels right if viewed at about 16" from a 23" monitor.

The over saturation is now only a 'problem' (for me) on the skin tones in lower left corner.

Being the pedantic s*d you know I am, I'd have to say there's a little uncorrected barrel distortion and tilt on the horizon that leads to it being level on the left and sloping downhill on the right.

There are no halos and I enjoy studying the remarkable detail you have captured (I keep going back to discover more things).

I prefer the second version of PP over the first, although I can't say why.
Is it a stitched panorama, or a UWA shot?

Hope that helps,

[ChrisH]

Hi Dave - thanks for your thoughts.

Also thanks for the F11 trick - brilliant! I picked up the barrel distortion too and have dealt with it.

This is a single frame shot using a Canon EF-S 18-50 mm lens, which I don't believe has been cropped.

This shot was taken in 2008, so bit rusty on the details.

Thanks for your help.

[Dave Humphries]

This is a single frame shot using a Canon EF-S 18-50 mm lens, which I don't believe has been cropped.

That's still impressive detail

[Donald]

I prefer the second version of PP over the first, .......

I'd go with that as well. Why? I think the 'toning down' of the blue makes for a slightly more subtle image, without losing the essential primary aim of the work; i.e. to create an image following the style of Newlyn and St Ives schools.

[ggt]

Much better in this edit. Can you, maybe with clone tool, remove the blue from the boat shadows on the sand? That is the only other thing I can see this distracting for me. Anywhere there is a puddle of water on the sand, it is reflecting blue. This is such an interesting pic. I really like the angles!