Day before the Snow Storm

[Myer Bornstein]

After bird watching and photographing at the Wellfleet Audubon Sanctuary we stopped at Scuesset Beach the day before big snow storm, waves were up, Breakwater covered with ice and Coast Guard Cutter leaving the east end of the Cape Cod Canal

D300 240 mm (80-400) 1/320 f9 -.3 EV

Myer

[Robert Amoruso]

Hello Myer,

Good to see you here. Welcome.

I like how you positioned the breakwater as a diagonal in the image and have it leading out of a corner. Diagonals are always strong leading lines compositionally that help to lead the eye to your subject, the light. I could not tell it was a CC cutter way out as it merges with the breakwater so best to wait for it to get in a better position.

The image is flat (contrast-wise) so I downloaded it and did a levels and curves correction. Levels to expand the tonal range and curves to add some contrast. I will have a disc at our workshop with how-to articles on all this, but if you need it in the interim, let me know and I will send you me TIFF workflow PDF.

I recropped the image to move the light from near the center of the image. This, IMO strengthens the image.

I like that you chose a fast shutter speed to capture the strong surf but also consider using a slow shutter to make the water look like silk - it is a much different presentation and lends a very different feel to the image. Just something to try. I strong daylight you will need to go to the lowest ISO setting and use a neutral density filter and a smaller aperture to get the shutter speed low enough - try getting down to 2 sec. or lower for different affects.

Your image was 500px × 332px. You can post to 1024x800 and 200kb in size. Thanks for including the technical info.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Myer,
Pretty cool lighthouse and I think Robert's Tweaks help strengthen the image. In the field if you had zoomed out a bit to capture more of the crashing waves.....that would have helped this compositionally and added a lot to the overall feel and mood.

[Myer Bornstein]

Robert thanks for your critique. I appreciate it and yes I would love to have your tiff flow pdf to work with.

Looking foward to seeing you at the workshop
Myer

[Dave Mills]

Hi Myer, I also bid you welcome. I think Robert gave you some very good advice and haven't much to add. I also feel if the cutter was further to the left and separated from the jetty it would have been better defined. Can't always have what we want....

[Norm Dulak]

In addition to what has been said above, I think that a bit of counter-clockwise rotation should be applied, to straighten the horizon in both the original and the re-post.

[Dennis "Curly" Buchner]

Hi Myer and welcome. I like Robert's repost and now you have more bullets to go explore this place again