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A shot of Lake Baroon taken last week using the SIgma 10-20 @ 10mm with a -3 stop reverse grad filter. Iam not entirely happy with the shot and would appreciate some thoughts. Unfortunately I was unable to find a better location that allowed me to shoot straight at the setting sun but I will revisit and scout around some more.

Click on the photo for a larger version.

Some details about the the dam.

Name: Baroon Pocket Dam / Lake Baroon
Water Course: Obi Obi Creek
Catchment Area: 72 square km
Lake Surface Area: 380 ha at 100 percent capacity
Full Supply Capacity: 61,000 ML
Current Capacity: 57,230 ML (93.8% full) at 03/09/2010 08:00AM
Flood Mitigation: 89,500ML
Year Complete: 1989
Type of Construction: Earth and rock-fill embankment with a central clay core
Length of Dam Wall: 370m

Looks really good to me. That reverse ND is nice!

Try lifting the shadow on that stump in the foreground just a bit to reveal a bit more detail. The colours in the sky really work nicely lead you down the image and the reflections in the water are a nice touch

I can see why you are not completely happy with this one. The color, the stillness of the water is very nice; but the position of the logs and the sunset which dissapears to the right causes a little imbalance in my mind.

When using the 10mm lens I have found that even a few cm shift can cause major changes in composition. Have you got any shots slightly to the left/. lower angle.

CraigVTR wrote:better location that allowed me to shoot straight at the setting sun

Did you get your feet wet?

aim54x wrote:Try lifting the shadow on that stump in the foreground just a bit to reveal a bit more detail.

Lastly, I would try cropping into pano and see whether you can make it stronger.

Thanks guys.
No I did not get the feet wet and I did brighten the stump a little in pp. I also used an sb800 hand held at 1/2 power to give it a little lift at the time of the shot. Seems it needs more. Thanks again.

Now, I like this one. Lovely colour and composition.

I think it's a good photo. They colours are great without overpowering as some make the mistake of doing in an image like this. The way you have slightly offset and prevented using the 'rule of halves' in the composition and the way you have maintained enough foreground detail too.

CraigVTR wrote: Iam not entirely happy with the shot and would appreciate some thoughts.

I personally would have taken a few steps to the left and got the camera as low as possible and as close to the water as safely as possible, thus maximising the reflection of the colourful sky. At the end of the day, for me anyway, when you have a sunset and not much interesting in teh foreground to compliment it, it's better to focus purely and primarily on the sunset and colours - I would have gone for symmetry with the clouds and colours making for the primary point of focus, as it stands I go looking at the stumps first.

With all that said, the image envokes some feeling for me with the red sunset and the (apparently) burnt/destroyed trees, symbolising the destruction of nature.. blah blah...

Thanks for the comments guys.

biggerry wrote:With all that said, the image envokes some feeling for me with the red sunset and the (apparently) burnt/destroyed trees, symbolising the destruction of nature.. blah blah...

Starting to get deep here Gerry.

CraigVTR wrote:Starting to get deep here Gerry.

c'mon, it was late and after quite a few beers and I was gettign emotional