[KenCo1964]

The view from the quarry I spent photographing yesterday.
Cropped top and bottom.



18-55 kit lens,
@ 55mm,
F8,
1/125 sec.
Iso 100.
Thanks.
Ken.

[Ribby]

It's a nice picture of a lovely looking place. However, I have a couple of comments that hopefully will be helpful. I think you could tweak the levels/curves more to give it more punch and I really don't like the drop-shadow type border, it just doesn't do it for me.

I have a question aswell (for anyone), about horizons. I seem to remember reading somewhere that the only time you should have a horizon in the middle of a shot is when you have a very good reflection going on (E.g a mountain reflecting in a lake). Is that right? Should the horizon in this shot be along one of the thirds instead?

Normally I would say yes Ribby, but in this case I think Ken's shot works fine with the horizon where it is. I don't think it's actually dead centre, more slightly above. Not on a third though.

The thing to remember is that all rules are made to be broken. The hard part, comes not when learning the rule itself (in this case the rule of thirds), but instead comes when to break that rule.
Ken's broken the rule here and it's worked. Normally when I try it, it doesnt
I think in this case the horizon being almost centre, works because of the cloud content at the top. Without that, it would seem like a double shot.

Instead I see a place I really want to go visit with a picnic.

Also with the vibrant foreground 'layer', the faded distant, and the clear(ish) skies, easily seperates the image into three sections for the viewer.

Ken...I like!

[stepheno]

I like the shot Ken - the colours are excellent with good variation between foreground and background. The horizon sits OK for me but I have to agree with Ribby about the border - it's fighting for my attention.

regards

[Venomator]

Lovely shot Ken - great composition although I, for one would like to see it without the cropped bottom - so to speak - just to see if it would add balance to the sky a little more ?

Unless, of course there was something more distracting at the bottom you needed to hide ?

As Marcel stated - a great shot that makes you wanna go visit (with or without a picnic !).

[KenCo1964]

Thanks for the comments guy's. I cropped for the road and signs in the foreground and power cabels overhead, which was also the reason for being at 55mm. Too much work for me cloning, I did use curves but wanted to keep the background more seperate, which is pretty much how it looked at the time anyway, as a farmer had a large fire going and the smoke was blowing uo the valley creating the haze on that background. The foreground I thought seperated quite nicely from the rest with the sun doing the work. It is unfortunate about the crop and the rule of thirds, I did feel I had to crop the bottom and the area above the cloud was just sky and didn't think it would add anything.
Thanks for the comments again.
Oh! and Ven/Marcel anytime you are in the area....I'll supply the picnic.

[dod]

great colour, lovely shadows and really works well as almost a pano

[Boon]

Lovely view ken, makes you want to visit.

[Matty]

i like this, the crop makes the sky, horizon and foreground into 3, and that seems to make it work