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sometimes pays off.

I was lucky enough to join the "Newcastle Sundancers" on one of their excursions to Cave Beach about 30km south of Newcastle. My photos of the cave per se didn't turn out promising but we had 10 minutes of beautiful rays despite un-inspiring cloud formations.

For your critique as always.

Thanks for looking.

Basking in the sun


The 'first' rays


The Cave itself...

love those rays buddy. looks intense.

Great shots Suren,

I like the first the most - the lack of contrast really works.

Great shots, lovin' the images

Nice work Suren, great to see you getting up early, dedication, thats what I like.

I agree with dviv, the first image is really nice and the pano crop works a treat.

#2 - I bet those sun rays looked about, say, a thousand times better in real life, trying to capture those, in my experience, is hard work. That said you have some very nicely defined rays here! This image needs the horizon straightened, as does the first (to a lesser extent). I like that touch of green weed in this image also, however I feel you need soemthing to connect the composition, ie join the foreground to the wonderful sky, this could be a defined rock line or slow exposed water trail...as always, easy to say in hindsight

Thats a nice looking cave, I vaguely remember seeing that in some of BigPix's images, don't suppose he was tehre?

Does teh water flow right up to the cave during high tide? it would be awesome to get a bit of water in there and also wash all then footprints away

biggerry wrote:Nice work Suren, great to see you getting up early, dedication, thats what I like.

I hoping to venture out a bit more when I get back. I have high hopes that you will be game to get in the salt water starting next summer.

biggerry wrote:I feel you need soemthing to connect the composition, ie join the foreground to the wonderful sky, this could be a defined rock line or slow exposed water trail...as always, easy to say in hindsight

This only crossed my mind fleetingly. I had so little time to figure out the basic composition. I see what you mean, perhaps a lower angle of view so that the rocks become a little more prominent and the middle ground is lessened somewhat. Also, once we take the shot, hindsight is all we have Keep em coming.

biggerry wrote:Thats a nice looking cave, I vaguely remember seeing that in some of BigPix's images, don't suppose he was tehre?

I am ashamed to say that he was there but, I didn't find out who he was! I only found out that he attended when his pics appeared on flickr group! Next time I will need to say hi. Getting locked out of the car at the end of the shoot didn't help either. I had another 35 minutes to kill at 7am until the spare key arrived. An average pano resulted and a lesson learnt... [Do not place your keys in the boot and close it ]

Sometimes just hanging around without expecting a good shot can provide interesting perspectives of the same scene.

devilla101 wrote:Great shots, lovin' the images

Thanks Devilla.

Rooz wrote:looks intense

Interestingly the rays were fairly subtle! One of the photographers completely missed it!

dviv wrote:I like the first the most - the lack of contrast really works.

biggerry wrote:I agree with dviv, the first image is really nice and the pano crop works a treat.

Thanks guys. I took this with BW in mind and overexposed it a touch. Then the yellow monotone (Cloudy WB maybe? out of camera) suited it.

surenj wrote:

biggerry wrote:Thats a nice looking cave, I vaguely remember seeing that in some of BigPix's images, don't suppose he was tehre?

I am ashamed to say that he was there but, I didn't find out who he was! I only found out that he attended when his pics appeared on flickr group! Next time I will need to say hi. Getting locked out of the car at the end of the shoot didn't help either. I had another 35 minutes to kill at 7am until the spare key arrived. An average pano resulted and a lesson learnt... [Do not place your keys in the boot and close it ]

........ and you were spotted by me towards the end of the shoot having a long chat with Pom, so hi for Sunday, as I was off chasing birds, if you had made it to coffee guess we would have met. I can't be missed, as I look a little like Santa......

some nice images...... but would like to see straight horizons, Pix of rocks and rays, a little darker may help, or some more contrast for improvement, inside cave, good roof detail, the sand looks as if an army has camped there, you have no control over this sorry to say, and the exterior is a little over exposed....... love the view up the beach and soft light

B&W..... nice, but find the foreground bush a little strong, maybe a pano style crop of this image to remove some of the bush and return your attention to the beach scene

big pix wrote:........ and you were spotted by me towards the end of the shoot having a long chat with Pom, so hi for Sunday, as I was off chasing birds, if you had made it to coffee guess we would have met. I can't be missed, as I look a little like Santa.....

Next I will definitely come up and say hi. Were you the one with a 300mm lens.. ?

big pix wrote:Pix of rocks and rays, a little darker may help, or some more contrast for improvement,

Point taken as well as comments by Gerry. I have tried to correct the colors back to the true red it was... Any thoughts on this?

big pix wrote:but find the foreground bush a little strong, maybe a pano style crop of this image to remove some of the bush and return your attention to the beach scene

Hadn't thought of it. Thanks.

I did have an 80-200mm on when I was chasing the birds.......

Rocks and surf......this is an improvement, the colours for me are fine

...... will look forward to having a coffee at the next shoot

big pix wrote:Rocks and surf......this is an improvement, the colours for me are fine

Thanks. I struggle with my colors a bit. Now I reckon it's got a bit of magenta cast!! GRRR,

big pix wrote:...... will look forward to having a coffee at the next shoot

Definitely

Point taken as well as comments by Gerry. I have tried to correct the colors back to the true red it was... Any thoughts on this?

the reworked version looks very tidy, maybe alittle overcooked, possibly heading somewhere between the two versions would definitely ring my bell. Need a slightly larger res version tho.

Sorry for the slow reply. I love the cave shot! Looks like a nice place to camp out so long as it is well above the high tide mark

biggerry wrote:maybe alittle overcooked,

I was thinking that. Will post a larger version when I get home.

aim54x wrote:Looks like a nice place to camp out so long as it is well above the high tide mark

No chance Cameron, Tide comes in...

aim54x wrote:Sorry for the slow reply

Critique is not compulsory Cameron!! Thanks for taking the time to look.

surenj wrote:

aim54x wrote:Sorry for the slow reply

Critique is not compulsory Cameron!! Thanks for taking the time to look.

I have been meaning to comment, I just have been really busy lately.

how do you manage to get such beautiful tone in the first image
is it desaturated

great work

aim54x wrote:I have been meaning to comment, I just have been really busy lately.

Appreciate your time Cameron.

wendellt wrote:how do you manage to get such beautiful tone in the first image
is it desaturated

I think the tones were already there Wendell. No it's not desaturated. I have checked the RAW in LR and I haven't done much at all apart from contrast adjustment. It's about a 1/2-1 stop overexposed though [which is my normal practice to recover shadows but this one didn't need that]

Do you remember whether this scene was similar to what you see here Bigpix?

Gerry, as requested I thought I'd post the large version of the seascape that I color 'corrected'



Thanks Bigpix, the BW improved when cropped!