[Leica] Aaron's PAW 45: Duke Campus in November

[aaron.sandler at duke.edu (Aaron Sandler)]

Hi Ted,

Thanks for the feedback and, especially, the suggestions for cropping.

>>http://www.duke.edu/~ajs2/PAW/2005_45/index.html<<<<
>Hi Aaron,
>First choice because it pops off the page with a good smack! :-)
>"Gothic light!" Absolute first choice, well seen, well executed! Great 
>light.

I appreciate that...I'm trying hard to make more of an effort at finding 
the light.

>The foot is a no brainer and I'm surprised you posted it considering your 
>ability to see, shoot and present good material.

Fair enough...I think I saw more of a possibility when I shot it and just 
couldn't give up on it in the end, which I probably should have.

>>>Allison showing Orion where we got married.<<
>I'd like this shot much better with a tighter crop. Not much. Cut the 
>bright sunlight area at the bottom, take it right off at the shadow line 
>of her legs and sun lit area.
>Now the eye attention goes directly to your wife and it captures a much 
>better feeling over all.  A nicer light/shade effect.
>All you need is that bright area gone and now you have a solid photograph 
>with feeling because your eyes are not drawn away from the main subject. 
>All I did was scroll down enough to cut it off and there was the magical 
>moment. ;-)

YES!  You're absolutely right.  When I shot it I was torn between my wife 
being framed by the backlit greenery and the look of her shadow on the 
stones...I ended up with this photo which didn't quite get the shadow but, 
again, I wasn't yet able to give up on it.  But when I do as you suggest 
and get rid of the shadow and light area at the bottom, the photo works 
much better.  I'm pleased with this suggestion of yours! :)

>And despite people who say, "I never crop! I do it in the camera!' Yeah 
>right, and that means they've never worked at photography for a living 
>while making instant improvements to create a "front page picture" and not 
>a page 13 waste basket shot! ;-)

Nah, I don't care about that...I try to crop in the camera as much as 
possible, and I'm pleased when it works out, but my photos often need a 
little more cropping (or sometimes a lot more)...especially with this new 
Leicasonic which has a 16:9 ratio sensor...ya gotta crop that pretty 
frequently!

>>>>Light in the Duke Gardens.<<
>Very well done while making the light work beautifully. Well framed and 
>executed.
>However!  :-( A nit picking thing. :-(  But it's nit-picking things that 
>people miss that make a shot really work or just sit there looking sort of 
>OK.
>Dead centre bottom edge of frame there are some highlighted green leaves 
>in a sort of horizontal line. Look like fern leaves. Right here is where 
>you do the same thing as in the Allison and Orion photo, trim them off 
>very carefully, you do not want to take too much and it makes a big 
>difference. A small thing, but it only takes a second to correct and makes 
>a major "eye line" difference.

Indeed...another good point...those lit leaves pull the eye down and out of 
the frame, don't they?  I need to look more carefully at the whole frame 
before posting...it sounds pretty obvious now that I say it, but...  :)

>Over all? A fair to middlin' effort for a walk about seeing things.
>We're looking for more.:-)

Tough crowd!  :)  :)

Thanks again for the advice.  I'll dive into the improvements when I get to 
my photo-computer.

Best,
Aaron