My first colour shots with the Pentax 67ii.

I’ve been waking up to spectacular sunrises recently and on Thursday I decided to chance it, get up earlier at 6am and drive out in the hope I’d be lucky with the weather. The sunrise certainly didn’t disappoint – clear skies, just enough cloud and beautiful pink hues. I drove over to Lake Washington (which is on my way to work) and as I walked down to the lake, the colours were starting to reach their most intense. Someone was already down by the water and I decided he’d make a good addition to the scene. When I clicked the shutter, I thought I might have snagged a real winner. After checking out the scans tonight however, I was only moderately pleased and think I missed an opportunity somewhat. As a result, I thought I’d share a little self critique. First of all, here’s the picture:

Looking at the final result, this image is a mix of good and bad. The good points revolve mostly around the colours, exposure, repeating patterns and foreground interest. The man breaks the monotony of a dramatic (but fairly typical) scene and it’s possible to get caught up in what he might be thinking – likely marveling at the beauty unfolding in front of his eyes. There are problems with the shot however – and it centers mostly around an image which is ultimately a bit confusing. For example, if you look at the poles, while they work well as far as creating a repeating pattern, the path they creates is one that leads the eye out of the image rather than deeper into it. Another problem is whether the triplet of subjects (the man, the poles and the landscape itself) are really necessary. It’s not clear what the viewer is supposed to be focusing on. There are a number of things like this but overall – I think it tries to do too much and ends up messy. I think it’s a decent picture, carried mostly on the vibrant scene and colours – but it could have been a lot better.

Now, I did take another shot of this scene and I think it illustrates the simplicity point in the previous paragraph:

This image is a lot cleaner. Removing one subject (the man) and composing so that the poles lead the eye into the image work much better from a composition point of view. Unfortunately it was shot about 30s later and so the colours aren’t quite as vibrant but I think it’s a better image technically. Here the drawback is that it’s not especially original.

Ultimately, while both images are OK – neither quite has the right combination of elements that I was looking for and given I only made 2 or 3 exposures, I’ll have to try my luck next time, armed with this analysis (and hopefully a wider lens too :). Anyway, I thought it might be useful to read a little on how I break down my shots.