Images FOR CRITIQUE

[brightmatter]

Personally, I would try to make these simpler in terms of lines. A way to evaluate the composition is to apply Arthur Wesley Dow's Line/Notan/Color analysis, http://www.daylilyart.com/design.php?id=B2 or Dow's book. Your colors while seemingly realistic don't make for composition or mood. Notan is about masses of light and dark (or other tones), which I think is where you could gain in this area with simplicity. Here's a good goal if you want nighttime urban shooting. http://www.cartermuseum.org/artworks/297 ; simple, good lines, simple areas of light and dark. I'd go back out looking for more simple compositions with lines, masses of light and dark, and color that is more evocative than realisitic (or maybe both)

Thanks a lot for giving these recommendations! I never usually intend to have realistic colours, but I guess that's how I happened to adjust them to this time around.

[h2oman]

Have at it, both from a technical/aesthetic viewpoint and whether or not it is just boring!

[StoneNYC]

Have at it, both from a technical/aesthetic viewpoint and whether or not it is just boring!

I don't "get it" it's wonderfully exposed and everything is in focus, but it doesn't draw me in or tell me what you're trying to say at all.

I also very much want to see that water tower in the background, it's almost as if the truck is in my way and I'm trying to see around it.

It's also a little "bright" in some way.

I think this was posted in reference to "sharpness" which I suppose it is?

[Jac@stafford.net]

Have at it, both from a technical/aesthetic viewpoint and whether or not it is just boring!

I love the hood ornament.

[Ken Lee]

Have at it, both from a technical/aesthetic viewpoint and whether or not it is just boring!

I'll bet it looked very nice in color.

[jp]

Have at it, both from a technical/aesthetic viewpoint and whether or not it is just boring!

I don't think it's boring. I love shooting wildflowers and cars/trucks with character, and George Tice proved water tanks are good photo material.. However I think it could be revisited for improved technical/aesthetic options. Part of what works for me at improving my photography is to shoot locally and revisit scenes when I can determine I can improve something.

I'm guessing you focused wide open and the water tower was distinctly separated on the ground glass, but when you stopped down after focusing, it unbeknownst got sharp. Much like the tree growing out of the head of the subject of an environmental portrait.

Aesthetically, what is the subject? Each object in the photo is part of the photograph and if it's not desired, it should not be in the photo. (e.g. Maris's post #17 in the sharpness thread) Would the truck be better represented with closeups than the whole thing? I often photograph vehicles at car shows. To show the whole vehicle would mean showing much of the car show, which is often distracting from what I want the film to see. In these cases, closeups and/or thin DOF work to my advantage as an option. Often a small part of a vehicle can communicate the same thing as the whole vehicle.

Also a large portion of the photo is sky. If you want a blank sky, that's OK, but if you don't and we can't control the weather, don't have it in the photo if it's not something you're thrilled about. Through composition, it's your choice if you want the sky to be part of the photo. If you have a puffy cloud sky or a brooding sky, perhaps that would be something more people would like to include in the photo and you can control the extent of that with filters and composition.

[mmerig]

This image is a good start, and just thinking about how to improve it is thought-provoking about the setting.

The low shrubs in front of the truck look like green rabbitbrush, which is a weedy plant, and if there is more of it to the left, and less of it on the other side of the truck, maybe you could frame more of the truck from the other side, thus losing the water tower, power line, and trees, and hopefully less distractions in the new background. An expanse of rabbitbrush could gradually fade out of focus. A blank sky works well in this picture, if minimized.

It seems like an all-in-focus approach is a common working habit in large format, even though the longer focal lengths give less depth of field (without tilts) compared to smaller formats, and so we have to work harder for total sharpness. If the background in the displayed picture is the less-busy, you could probably take advantage of the inherent shallow DOF and adjust the focus and DOF to make the tower etc. very fuzzy.

I was curious about the labeling on the door, so it would be nice to make sure this shows if possible in new images.

[h2oman]

I'll bet it looked very nice in color.

Thanks everyone for the effort you put into this. It gives me some things to think about. FWIW, when I went to get permission to photograph this, the guy looked at me kind of puzzled and said "Well, I guess one man's junk is another man's treasure!"

[Alan Gales]

Have at it, both from a technical/aesthetic viewpoint and whether or not it is just boring!

If I shot this I would shoot it in color and move in close with a wide angle lens to give it more impact. I would try to darken the sky with a polarizer also. I might move more to the front of the truck but still include the water tower.

[Peter Lewin]

My three cents: (1) I would avoid the water tower "growing out of the hood of the truck" by finding a different camera angle. (2) I would also look for an angle which didn't have the shrubs in front obscuring the lower half of the truck, assuming that the truck is the reason I'm taking the picture. I suspect a more frontal angle might resolve those issues.

Since you raised the question of "simply boring" my own response is that taking pictures of an old truck depends whether the truck is meaningful to you; as a viewer I go "ho hum" to pictures of old, sometimes rusting, cars and trucks because unless there is something special about the image, it has been done hundreds of times before, often in this forum's own threads.

Technically, in terms of sharpness and focus, I think the image is done well. IMOH, suggesting that you use color or filters which you may not own, is a level of suggestion beyond an image critique. For example, I found sufficient tone in the sky just as you have shown it. Would a bunch of fluffy white clouds have been nicer? Probably, but unless you were going to return to the scene daily until you found the perfect photogenic weather, again, beyond the scope of a critique.