Strolling along the canal

[Manfred M]

I'm always looking for techniques that let me produce good looking images under poor lighting conditions, and of course, the mid-day sun is a well known "killer" shooting condition.

This shot of the Dominion Arbouretum from the other side of the Rideau Canal was taken at around 11:30 in the morning; hardly the ideal time of day for this type of landscape shot.



The clouds and contrails from aircraft heading towards Toronto seem to point at the trees. The leaves and blossoms have just really come out and are still that brilliant light green colour, that fades so quickly. I was trying to divide the image in thirds; the foreground third is the water in the canal, the middle third is the bridge and the trees and the upper (background third) is the sky. I probably should have cropped a bit of the foreground, but did not.

[Rebel]

Very nice Manfred, you've dealt with the sun well I think. Those contrails work great at drawing the eye to the centre of the image.

[bnnrcn]

Very nice image Manfred, I loved it Nice colors and composition.The light also looks good considering the time when you took the photo. I would crop the FG a bit though.

[Manfred M]

Very nice image Manfred, I loved it Nice colors and composition.The light also looks good considering the time when you took the photo. I would crop the FG a bit though.

That was my thought too, but I decided to leave things as they are. When I played with various crops, the negatives outweighed the positives and somehow the sense of balance was lost.

[Shadowman]

Looks good for the shooting conditions. Nicely done.

[Digital]

Manfred, very nice photograph.



Bruce

[IzzieK]

Now your wish (want) reminds me of what I discovered in the Tool Section of Analog FX yesterday -- diving an image into thirds either vertical ways or horizontal ways. I just couldn't fall for it because I was sort of cutting my birdie image at the wrong place...but this one of yours will not suffer the same fate...the contrail and the sparse cloud formation are the ones I have seen straight off that balances the shot to the top. Nicely caught...

[Mike Buckley]

This is a perfect example because of its execution of why we shouldn't put our cameras away during the mid-day hours. Well done!

[flashback]

Beautiful shot! While I can understand the idea of cropping the foreground some, I agree it would it would throw off the balance; to me the foreground water, blue/purple-ish color and wave texture adds strongly to the image. In fact the image looks like something I would see on the cover of a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle (hint hint). Were to suggest anything, it would be to take that very dark green tree image left and lighten it some? It just seems to throw off the balance of the whole image (to me).

One final point: I've notice that people will comment on how something will lead the eye into or out of an image, I've yet to experience that and I wonder if that isn't simply a bit of conventional wisdom. When I first opened the image my eye went immediately to the bridge. Only after did I notice the contrails and the mare's tails (cirrus) clouds. In any event a very, very nice image. [So is taking a photo during mid-day supposed to be difficult?]

[Manfred M]

One final point: I've notice that people will comment on how something will lead the eye into or out of an image, I've yet to experience that and I wonder if that isn't simply a bit of conventional wisdom. When I first opened the image my eye went immediately to the bridge. Only after did I notice the contrails and the mare's tails (cirrus) clouds. In any event a very, very nice image. [So is taking a photo during mid-day supposed to be difficult?]

While I didn't mention it, there is a vignette around the edges of this image to keep the viewer's eyes moving towards the centre of the image. Most of my vignettes (and I use this technique a lot) are so "light" that you only notice them if I point them out.

Were to suggest anything, it would be to take that very dark green tree image left and lighten it some? It just seems to throw off the balance of the whole image (to me).

My thought was to counterbalance the tall darker tree on the right with the short darker tree on the left. I guess that didn't quite work out as well as I had hoped.

[Mike Buckley]

I've notice that people will comment on how something will lead the eye into or out of an image, I've yet to experience that and I wonder if that isn't simply a bit of conventional wisdom.

It's conventional wisdom that, unlike a lot of conventional wisdom, is actually wise. However, this photo doesn't provide any particularly good examples of it in my opinion. It does provide good examples of framing (the cloud formations, contrails and bright green trees) that helps direct our eye to the subject, the bridge. Even so, I think of compositional elements that frame the subject usually in a different context than compositional elements that lead the eye this way or that.