Critique Welcomed Increasingly cloudy with the possibility of grain

[Peter Roberts]

About a year ago now I stirred myself early to capture the gathering clouds over one of our local parks. I was trying Kentmere 100 for the first time and the resulting negatives were more grainy than I was expecting from a 100 ISO film. This may just have been due to my not having found the sweet spot for developing it Rodinal . I'm still not sure whether the grain adds to or detracts from these two:








Minolta SR7 / Vivitar 24mm f2.8 / Yellow and Orange Filter respectively

 

[Beth Anthony]

cloudy with grain. i think you checked both boxes nicely. great contrast, too. the tree stump is my favorite of the two.

 

[Gianluca Drago]

I don't know anything about analog photo development. But it seems to me that these two photos don't have too much grain (we can talk about vignetting, though). I prefer the first one because it has a subject. Just my personal opinion: clouds, no matter how interesting, strange, or exceptional they may be, sometimes are what push you to take a photo, but they rarely become a real subject that was truly worth photographing. In place/time perception is different from what you can convey with a photo.

 

[Gary Ayala]

I really wanted to like the first image, but I found it lacking in tonal range. It all sorta merges into a dark gray image with nothing significantly popping out and grabbing my attention. Yes, the stump is obviously the center of attention, but in merges/flows into a somewhat similar gray zone of the grass and a somewhat similar gray zone of the overly vignetted sky. A tighter crop, removing the sky/clouds above the stump and adding more lighter/white zones, in my opinion would help in grabbing my attention.

 

[Peter Roberts]

cloudy with grain. i think you checked both boxes nicely. great contrast, too. the tree stump is my favorite of the two.

Thanks Beth.

 

[Peter Roberts]

I don't know anything about analog photo development. But it seems to me that these two photos don't have too much grain (we can talk about vignetting, though). I prefer the first one because it has a subject. Just my personal opinion: clouds, no matter how interesting, strange, or exceptional they may be, sometimes are what push you to take a photo, but they rarely become a real subject that was truly worth photographing. In place/time perception is different from what you can convey with a photo.

Thanks for you honest critique, Gianluca. Not least because even if a post is marked 'Critique Welcome' I sometimes get the impression people hold back.
Your comments rather echo my own opinions but I though it wouldn't hurt to canvass second opinions.
As to vignetting. I have to admit I'm rather too fond of it. One thing I have noticed in this digital age is that its effect varies greatly depending on the screen an image is viewed on. For instance the same vignetted image looks completely different on the screen of the off line desk top that I use for photo editing, the laptop that I use for posting them and the phone that I may want to share them via WhatsApp. There is no doubt a techy reason for this and equally no doubt it would be beyond my comprehension.

 

[Peter Roberts]

I really wanted to like the first image, but I found it lacking in tonal range. It all sorta merges into a dark gray image with nothing significantly popping out and grabbing my attention. Yes, the stump is obviously the center of attention, but in merges/flows into a somewhat similar gray zone of the grass and a somewhat similar gray zone of the overly vignetted sky. A tighter crop, removing the sky/clouds above the stump and adding more lighter/white zones, in my opinion would help in grabbing my attention.

Thanks for you honest appraisal, Gary. It really is much appreciated.
That stump is a favourite subject of mine so I've no doubt I'll be returning to it. Between you and me I haven't yet got a shot of it that I really like. Must try harder!

 

[Gianluca Drago]

Thanks for you honest critique, Gianluca. Not least because even if a post is marked 'Critique Welcome' I sometimes get the impression people hold back.
Your comments rather echo my own opinions but I though it wouldn't hurt to canvass second opinions.
As to vignetting. I have to admit I'm rather too fond of it. One thing I have noticed in this digital age is that its effect varies greatly depending on the screen an image is viewed on. For instance the same vignetted image looks completely different on the screen of the off line desk top that I use for photo editing, the laptop that I use for posting them and the phone that I may want to share them via WhatsApp. There is no doubt a techy reason for this and equally no doubt it would be beyond my comprehension.

I'm honored that my comments reflect your opinions. My comment reflects my impressions, but I didn’t mean to be critical — I actually like these photos, especially the first one with the tree trunk, on which I disagree with Gary: in my opinion, the trunk stands out against the background (but everyone has a different screen, who knows).
As for the clouds: sometimes I feel like stopping my bike just to take a photo of a single little cloud, with nothing else in the frame — that's how fascinated I am by clouds. But then I hold back and take the picture only in my memory.
As for vignetting, I often add it in post. Not in every photo, but sometimes I just love vignetting.