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Study Group 26 |
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| Bob Benson |
Dynamite cityscape. The only thing I could suggest is to crop a little more sky to make it more panoramic. |
| Paul Allen | Reaction: Another excellent fireworks photo! What I especially appreciate about this is that it’s a cityscape with the added visual surprise of fireworks in the sky. The lights of the city are wonderful, and the fireworks add interest without dominating. The added color in the smoke above the buildings is nice. Suggestions: If this was mine, I might experiment with a slightly tighter crop…maybe a little off the top and a little off the left. There’s a little more “dead” sky at the top than you really need, so tightening it up a little might help the eye focus longer on the most important parts, the fireworks especially. But that’s a matter of personal preference…this is a great shot! |
| Youmans Hsiong | |
| Brian Duchin | As I mentioned previously, your image and Bob's are prime examples of how photographers view an event. While Bob's photo was a close up, your image pulls back and give us a sense of the entire scene. While not dominant, the fireworks gives me a great visual background to the city skyline. Your composition is well balance and your post processing brings out the rich colors. |
| Belinda Keller | Additional spurs balance the shot nicely. It is captivating with much to see. I’m fascinating by how you overlayed two shots and then adjusted. Adjustments added a lot of dimension. For me, you kept just the right amount of foreground. The silhouettes encompass the whole scene. Contrasts and saturation of colors are spot on, to me. You achieved greater emphasis to the city lights and sky, especially highlighting the smoke stream. The green domed building pops right out, as do the reflections captured in water which are a nice golden glow. The entire city is glittering in celebration. Nice panorama. |
| Jose Maria Cartas | I like the skyline and that is rendered as a panoramic view. I would have even gone farther and made it more panoramic, cropping good one third of the sky. I am not so sure that the fireworks add to the image. They are interesting, yes, but they are comparatively small and somehow distract from the beauty of the skyline with the illuminated buildings. They occupy only one sixth of the width of the picture, and the rest is just dark sky. Perhaps, if you wanted to make a picture of the fireworks, a vertical frame with only the fireworks and the buildings below them could have produced a more powerful result. I did it for you in the attached image, but I don't know if you have enough resolution in the original file to try that.
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Ed Gulesserian |
Fun to look at and excellent technique. I’m a big fan of dramatic panoramic landscapes and this certainly has those qualities. If you are inclined, it may have commercial possibilities. You have a knack for getting to great overview locations (or you are relentless). I like your adjustments. It’s unusual to see so many office lights turned on at midnight. Maybe it’s something unique to New Years Eve. At the risk of nitpicking, I’ll ask if there is too much in the image. I’d be curious to see how the visual impact changes if you made this a vertical crop by eliminating the right and left thirds of the image. That may sound counterintuitive since the city skyline is so spectacular across the width of the image, but it seems to me there is some competition for the viewer’s focus between with the skyline, which is a great horizontal subject, and the fireworks, which are a great vertical subject. Is the skyline better with the fireworks? Probably. Are the fireworks better with the entire skyline? I’m not so sure. |
| Member Bio | |
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Youmans Hsiong - Biography
I am a former San Francisco College photography department student from 1998-2007. I spent almost ten years of my spare time in school studying photography, while working full time as an automotive worker. My wife and I supported three kids, all college grads, who are now working professionals. I love nature and travel, and often organize photography trips with my friends to the Western states, including Alaska. I'm a traditional photographer who uses film and a manual Hasselblad camera. About a year ago, I bought my first Canon 5D Mark II digital, because I was tired of checking in film at airport security. I use CS4 and like to use Lightroom to organize my photography files and make quick adjustments. |
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