Sunset over frozen lake

[joel quenneville]

I was trying to shoot a pleasing silhouette of this tower and tried several angles when the row of lamps on the pier caught my eye. I tried to use them as a leading line to draw the viewer into the photograph. I was particulary attracted to the way the last orange beams of sunlight were filtering through the glass and ice on the lamps in contrast to the silhouetted poles. The highlights on the tower helped to give it the depth often lacking in silhouettes.

Three bracketed exposures were merged to create an HDR using Photomatix Pro.

ISO 500
Nikkor 18-70mm @ 27mm
f/16
Nikon D300
Average shutterspeed - 1/400s
Hand-held

[Bruce Murden]

Joel, I especially like the highlights on the tower -- we don't often see that approach to silhouettes or near silhouettes. Good framing of the sun between the lampposts, too. Nicely done!

[Paul Marcellini]

For an HDR, it doesn't look it, so well done. I like the overall comp and find it well thought out. For a silhouette, or near to it, I find it doesn't work as well. The lower left corner is too dark and imposing for me. A little too much black, so I think either try to bring out some more detail there or if you had walked forward and left and panned right a little, the interesting silhouette of the tower would be closer and lower in frame, eliminating the "black hole". Hope this helps.

[Robert Amoruso]

Joel,

I am going to agree with Paul on this one. I like the idea here and getting the sunset highlights on the tower and lampposts. I don't see how you could crop this to improve it without ruining other proportions in the scene that balance it - i.e. the tower, lampposts and sun locations.

Paul's suggest to recover shadow detail in the lower left is worth a try.

[Fabs Forns]

Very original approach, I like the colors.

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Very striking composition and well planned composition. Love the graduated coloring of the sky and how the setting sun was placed between the posts. Congratulations on a fine image.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Joel,
Robert put up the crop suggestion......and by this time you know how much I love that tool.......so I cropped it a bit and lightened the darker area. BTW......I did try just the lightening of the whole composition.......and I was OK with it but personally preferred the balnce of the crop version........either way though....very nice HDR work and great use of the lamp posts as leading lines. You have the detail in the shadow area.......so this was just a slight levels tweak for the web presentation. I especially like the sunburst. Very nicely done! let me know what you think.