Sunset Lake
by LauraLee

Comment by DougPaz:
LauraLee, Greetings from the Critique Club };-)

Initial thoughts
Very pretty, meets the challenge, very small

Composition/ Content

I know this is your first submission and I'm sure that the last thing you want to hear is that it is too small. With that in mind, I'm going to try and critique this as if it wasn't. One thing that I feel would have improved this shot is to get the horizon off of the center of the shot. More about that later. Other than that, the composition seems very good. Colors are beautiful.

Background
Background is great, I like the jet trails and the way they seem to move toward the back of the shot.

Camera Work - Technical
Focus seems good and contrast is excellent for the difference in light and shadow you have here.

Digital Processing - Technical
A couple of things here. I mentioned the horizon line. Because this is a landscape, a panorama style shot works really well. I would have cropped most of the dark area in the front to bring the horizon down. I may have even cropped the bright clouds at the very top just leaving the jet trails in the orange sky. This would have made for a real "WOW" kind of shot with just the black and orange and the big old ball of a sun. I wonder if this is straight from the camera or if you used any processing. The sky is a great color if you didn't use any saturation and/or hue.

Fits The Challenge
Definitely fits the challenge well.

My Opinion On The Photo
I originally scored this shot a six which is on the high end of your votes. I guess you realize that if it had been larger you may have really scored well here. I think that it meets the challenge well but could have been improved a little to finish much higher than it did. Welcome to DPC, and keep up the good work.


I would be happy to talk further about this shot if you would like to contact me.
DougPaz

Sunset Lake
by LauraLee

Comment by Clou9:
Looks a tad polorized, not a big enough a picture to be sure. Love the colors in the sky, but there is too much black empty space at the bottom of the picture, maybe crop a tad off, other than that it is a good shot...

Sunset Lake
by LauraLee

Comment by karmat:
Beautiful colors and composition. I really cannot think of anything I would suggest to make it better. I would have liked to seen it bigger, though. :-)

Sunset Lake
by LauraLee

Comment by Swashbuckler:
Very pretty shot, but it's sooo small! It's hard to make out enough detail to address quality issues. Nice colors, maybe a bit too much foreground. Show me more, maybe I can squeeze another point for you. 7 Swash

Sunset Lake
by LauraLee

Comment by Harz_Joerg:
Why is it so small? The clouds are great with nice features I would like to see in more details. Also the color is great. You might have cropped the bottom portion a little more: the black area is not adding anything and thus unnecessary.

Sunset Lake
by LauraLee

Comment by indigo997:
Why so small??? That is a gorgeous color in the sky! The horizon is too centered, but I'm glad that the sun isn't in the middle of the shot. I'd crop a lot of the bottom as the real drama is in the sky.

Sunset Lake
by LauraLee

Comment by Sonifo:
Not a bad sunset, but I think the sunset is more of the subject then the landscape. Good luck!