The following critique is based on a Certificate Student's Chapter Five Assignment from TPC's Photographic Techniques, Book I. The critique is un-edited from the original with the exception of this header text. All images on this page, with the exception of TPC's Logo, are © 2004 Tressie Davis. No image or text, or any part of any image or text on this page can be reproduced by or for any means without the Copyright owner's written consent.

Dear Tressie,

My, my -- how fast we learn!

Starting with Mac Bridge #1, I can see how you have moved in closer to frame the bridge with all the foliage, making the bridge and it's brightness definitely the center of attraction. Then with Bridge #2, you've moved back quite a ways in order to capture a secondary subject, and placing it on a proper intersection point (ROT) within the scene.

Now, I'll give you some advanced pointers concerning both of these two initial compositions:

1. Even though this thought would probably not have applied to this scene, try to keep in mind that you should always shoot your longest shots first if you are planning on moving in closer to your subject to capture more scenes from this same surrounding area. The reason for this is so that you don't take any pictures that might include your footprints from having moved in closer first, then gone backwards for the long shot, as when shooting in sand, snow, soft dirt, mud, slime-covered rocks, etcetera. Also keep in mind that you may move to your left or right if you are truly working your subject for the best or various angles using your array of lens focal lengths.

2. I think it's great the way you composed these two scenes -- Bridge #1 would probably sell as a postcard after doing a little digital artwork. What I did with Bridge #2 can be applied to Bridge #1, so listen-up!


The first thing I did was to add some contrast to the bridge alone making it appear to be a little sharper against the bright sky (this is where one of your stock cloud background shots would come in handy). Next, I used the Enhance>Adjust Color>Hue/Saturation and individually chose the Cyan slider to affect the trees and grass, then used the Red slider to see if any red colors could be augmented -- you can see the tips of the bushes as well as the branches more true to life in color, and the sandy road took on a bit more color; plus some small red lights now appear on the bridge. Next, I chose the Blue slider to further enhance the water's appearance.

Now, the only other thing I personally would have tried to do would be to use your camera's Self-Timer to capture both you and Dominic sitting towards the far end of the bench turned toward your left looking at the bridge; this adds that personal touch, plus it adds to 'leading lines' in your composition. So, hindsight makes you want to hurt me. Please keep reading and sit on your hands.

I know, right about now you're trying to kick me through your monitor for not having told you so, but I stand tall against your shouts of anger and displeasure, as I do write in both books about adding personality to your composition's ROT intersections. But lucky for you, I'm gracious enough to tell you how to place you and Dominic in this photo after-the-fact if you so desire.

Just take you and Dominic out to a park, sit on a similar type of bench (or any bench), try to duplicate the time of day (the shadows in your original image look to be about noon-ish), have your husband along to trip the shutter release, or use your camera's self-timer, set-up your camera as closely as you can to the way you shot this bridge picture (same focal length especially), compose Dominic and yourself on the bench at the same angle from the camera as before, tell Dominic not to move, the either holler at your husband to trip the shutter release, or move yourself from the bench reminding Dominic not to move, hurry to the camera, depress the Self-Timer control, hurry back and get into position, and let the camera record the two of you sitting on a bench.

Then in Elements, either use your Magic Wand and Lasso to carefully outline you, Dominic, and the bench (unless you want to eliminate the bench so that you can place just the two of you on the original scene's bench), then with the Move Tool, grab your selection of you two and drag it into your Bridge scene.

When you drag it into your Bridge scene, Elements will automatically place it on a new layer (this is a safeguard against you screwing up the Background layer). You will find that you can position you and Dominic anywhere in the photo, but I suggest the bench, er, just for comfort if for no other reason.

Zoom in closely so that you can be sure you have positioned the two of you exactly on the bench as you like it -- also look for any digital artifacts that you may have missed when you were lassoing. Use your Eraser Tool with solid edges at an appropriate size, pressure, and color (white in the bottom box of the Tool Bar) and gently erase away any pixels you may have transferred from one image to the other.

In your Sunrise Bridge, I think #1 has the best color, but viewing on different monitors can fool the viewer's eye. The composition of #3 is the best because you didn't waste the distant space on the right like in #1. We still need some work on not draining the lake, though.

The compositional technique you have applied in #4 is a good effort, however I want to explain a little more about even more thoughts that need to be added to the composition process already spinning at high speed inside your brain.

When you add a nearby secondary subject (your pretty leaning tree) to a scene with an obviously more important subject (the bridge in all it's early morning glory), you want to be sure that the secondary subject has a place to sit. The poor tree seems to have lost its footing. The two main things the viewer's eyes go to when viewing a print or painting is the brightest point or the point of sharpest focus or contrast.

The branches of your tree contrast nicely against the sunrise, which means that many viewers' brains will instinctively look at the trees limbs before they even start to look at the bridge; it's the way our brains work. Plus, the tree is larger and closer to the viewer. So, in due course, those same viewers may very well continue to see what else the tree's image has to offer before they move on to the rest of the scene. If they do, they run into a dead end wondering what happened to the rest of the tree.

My point is that if you're going to include a foreground subject, give it a place to connect to the scene. And, this #4 view of the bridge is the most dramatic of the four. What inspires me the most is the impact of the bridge almost coming right at me, and the dramatic appearance in the height differences between the two towers. I just took out most of the tree to see what the bridge would look like on its own.

I'm going to look at your B/W submissions in a separate email. Nice submissions from you, again, I'm very happy for you in that your creative mind and your eye for recognizing opportunities keeps expanding. And this is only Assignment Five; just think of what you're going to be able to do after a few more Chapters!

Tom
TPC