Hi Peter, I have never been there, but Staffa Island has been familiar to me for many years through the music of Mendelssohn; his Hebrides Overture was inspired by his own visit to this island and Fingal’s Cave in 1830 and whenever I hear it cannot help but think of misty waters, cold winds and the dark columns of basalt guarding this island. Now, while I can see and enjoy the columns in this photograph, what I do not feel is a sense of mood and drama that I get listening to Mendelssohn (don’t stress, he is a hard act to follow).
Two things really let this image down for me; the first is the blown out sea and sky in the right of the picture. The problem with any bright area of the picture is that it attracts the eye like a moth to a candle and once there it is difficult to get it back into the darer parts of the picture.
Ideally this is an image where you would shoot in RAW mode and then use the extended dynamic range to pull back detail into the sky. If you did not shoot RAW for this photograph then your only real option might be to Photoshop a sky back into the picture. As an idea, have a look at some of your other photos from this trip for a seascape, preferably one shot with a similar lens focal length and see if you can drop that sky into the background. It’s a rather simple process, all you need to do is drag the new image onto this photo and then use a layer mask to blend the two images together (like anything, the challenge is in using finesse to make the two images gel together).
Now the second problem with this image is the light being reflected from the life buoy… nothing says “I used direct flash” more than seeing those reflective strips glowing bright. One of the simplest ways to pull this back us to use the Burn tool… set it to the Midtone setting and then just gently massage the bright areas back to a more realistic tone and you should be looking good.
Ideally I would suggest going back and having another go at making this photo but otherwise I hope these suggestions help.
Cheers, Image Doctor.
Staffa - Image Doctor's edited version
