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Our family was invited to a picnic day a few weeks ago (originally it was going to be at Vaucluse but due to bad weather was relocated to Clovelly in Sydneys eastern suburbs).

Whilst we were at this seaside location my daughters and I of course went to a bit of a wander with the camera and took some photos. The location we were at (Clovelly bowling club) is perched high up on the cliffs overlooking the ocean and unlike our usual seascapes these were not taken at the crack of dawn but rather at the most unflattering middle of the day - lucky it was overcast

C&C welcomed...

The cliff edges were littered with these vines with bright purple flowers which I incorporated into some of the images.


NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm, 1/100 sec at f / 11, ISO 100

The view along the cliff edge


NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm, 1/100 sec at f / 11, ISO 100

and finally a bit of fun with my girls jumping on this rocking stone they found...

Jump


NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 42 mm, 1/1250 sec at f / 4.0, ISO 100

I do like the framing with the vines in the first, but........they don't seem to be framing anything if you get what I mean. The image for me lacks any distant and mid ground interest. Can you bring out those clouds a little more to add that extra interest?

Second and third are both well executed, the third being a great family album image.

The third image is great, the lighting on that is superb, semi cloudy days like that are premo for getting great portraits and shots like this.

I quite like the first, the composition and framing work well, maybe some cropping might more clearly define the flowers as the primary subject?

#1 is quite nice IMO. The framing doesn't bother me too much. Although you could crop it down, I reckon it also works in the square crop.

Geoff M wrote:I do like the framing with the vines in the first, but........they don't seem to be framing anything if you get what I mean. The image for me lacks any distant and mid ground interest. Can you bring out those clouds a little more to add that extra interest?

biggerry wrote:I quite like the first, the composition and framing work well, maybe some cropping might more clearly define the flowers as the primary subject?

surenj wrote:#1 is quite nice IMO. The framing doesn't bother me too much. Although you could crop it down, I reckon it also works in the square crop.

Thanks guys - I'm not sure if I can do too much more with the sky in the first - I already used a pretty heavy grad filter (exposure) (in Lightroom) to tone down the almost white sky (as shot). However when I was shooting this it was more the flowers were the subject and the vines and oof background (which hopefully is still obviously sky, sea and maybe cliffs) was the "frame".

I originally shot this vertically so I have more room above and below in the original and cropped down to this. I also have a landscape image I took which I don't think is as strong.

Geoff M wrote:Second and third are both well executed, the third being a great family album image.

biggerry wrote:The third image is great, the lighting on that is superb, semi cloudy days like that are premo for getting great portraits and shots like this.

- I took quite a few of the girls mucking about (and they also took some with my camera). It was still quite bright however so any portraits I did I had a bit of squinting to contend with

I love the way the violet flowers stop the eye. It's like...hit the brakes, you ain't goin any further! This is colour working with composition in a very unusual way. An eye skid.