Rita Johnston
February 2025 - Blue Hour Fishing
Original
About the Image(s)
This photo was taken as the boat was heading out to fish under the Newport, OR bridge. It was taken with a Sony RX10iv, at the blue hour. In processing, I adjusted the colors in ACR first, then adjusted the saturation in Nik Color Efex Pro, added a subtle fog filter, and denoised it with Topaz clear denies. I’ve included the original to see the full picture. I cropped it more for the story than the scene. All comments are appreciated, including what category I could enter it in competitions? Is there a better title for the story?
7 comments posted
The color you applied is beautful. This is a serenne image, reminiscent of a peaceful time.
To me, the scene seems unbalanced. The rocks on one bottom side together with the high arched of the bridge weigh heavily on the right side. So I tried to balance it out.
I copied the rocks and pasted them on the left side . Then I warped the left side rocks to make a V of rocks. They needed to draw less attention (weight), so I slected and blured the roces. Then I color picked the color cast on the water and applied a solid adjustment layer in that color.
Next, I cropped down on the sky. Following that, I opened NIK Color Efex Pro and used the Darken/Lighten center preset. In that, I placed the center on the fishing boat and darkened the outside of the image. Posted: 02/11/2025 04:15:51
To me, the scene seems unbalanced. The rocks on one bottom side together with the high arched of the bridge weigh heavily on the right side. So I tried to balance it out.
I copied the rocks and pasted them on the left side . Then I warped the left side rocks to make a V of rocks. They needed to draw less attention (weight), so I slected and blured the roces. Then I color picked the color cast on the water and applied a solid adjustment layer in that color.
Next, I cropped down on the sky. Following that, I opened NIK Color Efex Pro and used the Darken/Lighten center preset. In that, I placed the center on the fishing boat and darkened the outside of the image. Posted: 02/11/2025 04:15:51
I like what you did and will try some of that. Thank you! Posted: 02/11/2025 20:23:40
I think your title works just fine if you want to describe what you captured as a landscape photo. If you want to evoke more of a "feeling" about viewing this scene, then maybe a different title should be considered after a little different processing that makes this more ethereal and less documentary. And I'm not saying documentary as a negative, LOL, because this is well captured and nice to look at, plus the colors are very serene.
I agree that the rocks on the right seem to throw off the balance without rocks added on the left, as Georgianne suggested. If you wanted to enter this as a landscape, you probably need a balanced foreground, so that would do it. Plus the crop that was suggested to reduce some of the sky.
I made an example that goes in a little different direction. I made a crop that focused more on the boat and took the rocks out completely. I used the remove tool in Lightroom to take out a little of the rocks that were left after my crop. I placed the boat at the intersection of the bottom left of a rule of thirds grid, then also cropped a little bit from the left and more from the sky with the right top intersection touching a part of the bridge arch. I also removed the streak of dark matter floating in the water on the right. I think this still makes for a peaceful scene without the roughness of the rocks originally at the bottom. It think it puts your focus a little more on the fishing boat and it's light reflections in the water. Just some food for thought. Posted: 02/12/2025 20:04:50
I agree that the rocks on the right seem to throw off the balance without rocks added on the left, as Georgianne suggested. If you wanted to enter this as a landscape, you probably need a balanced foreground, so that would do it. Plus the crop that was suggested to reduce some of the sky.
I made an example that goes in a little different direction. I made a crop that focused more on the boat and took the rocks out completely. I used the remove tool in Lightroom to take out a little of the rocks that were left after my crop. I placed the boat at the intersection of the bottom left of a rule of thirds grid, then also cropped a little bit from the left and more from the sky with the right top intersection touching a part of the bridge arch. I also removed the streak of dark matter floating in the water on the right. I think this still makes for a peaceful scene without the roughness of the rocks originally at the bottom. It think it puts your focus a little more on the fishing boat and it's light reflections in the water. Just some food for thought. Posted: 02/12/2025 20:04:50
I like that too. It seems more serene without the rocks. Another title might be "Kara J Headed Out," but that is documentary too. The boat's name is Kara J. Posted: 02/13/2025 17:14:22
I guess one thought might be that a viewer who is not a photographer, may not know what "Blue Hour" is or means. So changing it to "Kara J Headed Out" may make more sense. The person looking at this image might enjoy knowing the boats name as they view this peaceful scene. Posted: 02/13/2025 18:12:37
The colors and mood in this image are very nice Rita. I agree that the rocks sort of detract from the rest of the scene. I like Denise's crop. I use added-in birds often in landscape images, and my thought when I saw the birds here was that they were too close to the trees and would add a nice counter element if they were up higher in the sky and fading away into the distance. Posted: 02/15/2025 00:02:24
Yes to the birds! They will make it more interesting and true to life. Posted: 02/20/2025 02:37:22