Image Doctor: Heaven

Hi Drazen,

If anything, I tend to describe myself as a project-based photographer… unless I know why I am taking the photograph, I tend to avoid pulling out the camera.

Now, this might seem a little too precious for some readers, but there is a reason for this; I believe that unless you can specifically say (or at least feel in your soul) why you want to make a photo of a particular subject then chances are it is not going to be a strong photograph.

Knowing what it is within a scene that you want to capture will also be a major help later on when you start looking at your photo in post production.

Now, I am going to take a good guess and say that you were drawn to the idea of that boundary between sky, sea and sand and that tiny, yet encroaching band of water. In looking at the image you need to decide for yourself what is the most important part of the picture, then you need make sure that the viewer also understands what you are looking at. Then, the challenge is to gently work the image so that you are both on the same page.

As I look at this image I find both the sky and the sand rather bright and this is distracting my attention away from the sea. One simple solution for resolving this is to gently darken the sky in postproduction. What is interesting is that even though the sand will still be bright, we will actually be drawn back up into the photo at every chance, simply because we are used to looking up for more information on a page.

The simplest way to darken the sky this is to use the Burn Tool in Photoshop; choose the Burn Tool, select a large brush and then just make one or two passes over the sky.

In the example below I have used the Burn Tool and given the images slight crop.

Hope this is a help,

 

Anthony

Image Doctor's edited version