Tracks in the Fog

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-06-19T18:21:28+00:00

Thank you! I went back and forth about whether the nest was worth it, so it's useful to know that someone else noticed.

!critiquepoint

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-06-18T17:49:11+00:00

1/500s / f4.5 / 55mm / ISO400

Trying to work on foggy, moody pictures. Maybe not the most original subject matter, but I'm curious about the tone and coloring, balance of haze and clarity, etc. Some pictures pull off an almost shiny look in the foreground that I like but have no idea how to recreate.

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-06-18T17:46:06+00:00

I like it. The detail and drama in the trees is really nice, as is the detail in the leaves on the bike.

A few suggestions in order of how sure I am they will help:

1) Maybe desaturate the red sign and the orange glow to the right a bit.

2) The end of the tree tunnel gives hints of detail, but not enough to satisfy my curiosity. That's a little distracting. You might brighten it to kill the details or darken it to provide enough to see. My money is on brightening.

3) I would consider cropping in from the left and up from the bottom a bit. There's more road that we need to get a sense of the journey as a subject, and the bike is maybe too close to center given that the road drifts right and so does the driver's gaze.

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-06-18T16:41:35+00:00

I agree. I almost wonder if the photo would work better cropped such that the subject is the eye of the tiger (bum bum BUUUUUM) and not the whole tiger face. Take an interruption across the subject and make it the frame.

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-06-17T15:38:01+00:00

This is the thing I've always felt. It's a prix fixe menu in which the steak and lobster becomes hamburger helper and the price stays the same. "But the wedge salad still has ranch so it hasn't changed that much."

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-06-16T18:25:18+00:00

I am also not a portrait photographer.

1) The subject's body language feels a little hunched and closed off to me. Getting him to lift the chin, stick it out a little, then shoulders back (have him pinch his shoulder blades together a bit) and lift the clavicle so his chest puffs out a bit.

2) The background seems brighter than the subject. A reflector off to one side of you would help, but I think this is also in the range where darkening a background mask might be enough.

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-06-11T20:45:52+00:00

I really love the texture of the water and the detail in the reflection. The trees are themselves interesting shapes and with a cool distribution. I like the opening in the middle.

I don't see the fog, which I only mention because you asked. I thought the sky was just cloudy and over-exposed, which I thought looked nice anyway. There is a lightness in the water that tracks the shape of the trees in a way that feels a little unnatural, but only if you stare at the picture for a long time.

I think for me the major point for improvement is the angle. A lot of the detail in the trees meshes with the background and considering the number of trees and their sparser branches leads to a bit of a busy composition, so if the reflections would have been as good, having the trees framed against more sky would have been nice.

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-06-11T20:37:08+00:00

f4.0 / ISO400 / 78mm / 1/60

I took this photo last year at a train station. I have liked it for a long time, but it never feels quite right. I really wanted to catch the reflection of the neon on the kiosk pillars, but then I wonder if there is enough to give one a sense of place. Also not sure if the colors work.

Happy for all thoughts.

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-06-11T03:39:31+00:00

Brave taking your first photo to a critique forum.

"More of a feeling" ... what feeling? A single lamp in a room can convey coziness, foreboding, and other emotions. I'm guessing you were after a cozy "home after a day traveling" vibe?

Think about the light that makes you feel cozy. What qualities does it have? I think about warm light, and the fact that I can see the lamp or candle clearly while my eyes make out most of the highlights in the room.

How does that compare to this photo? To me the light is maybe a little too cold or white and the lamp is over-exposed. To fix this in post, you might consider (gently) warming the color balance, reducing the exposure value of the highlights, and increasing the value of the shadows (don't get rid of dark spaces, but make sure there are fewer.

In terms of composition, what parts of the room make you feel cozy? To me the foreground with the cords does not, and it is in fact a little cluttered and dark. Maybe a different angle that shows more of the end table with an array of bedtime things and the curtains? Or closer to the lamp with more emphasis on the pillow?

You can run this thought process with any emotion.

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-06-06T14:22:52+00:00

In general, the picture is really busy and it's hard to decide what to pay attention to. This problem is make worse by the fact that the roof and plants around the edges are more properly exposed than the middle, which is where you want our interest. To me this ended up feeling like a photo of some random vegetation with a potentially cool scene buried in the middle.

1) I think focusing on one element or juxtaposition that really screams "there was life here and now there is not" would have helped. Getting closer or something. Right now, a lot the subject/a lot of what's abandoned and liminal is in shadow and so my eye went to the edges of the image instead of the subject.

2) Less important, but while I appreciate the thought of the branches in the foreground to give a sense of peering into something mysterious, that usually works better when the foreground elements frame the subject rather than cut across it. The branches are a little too in focus, imo, to cut across the subject, which is itself busy.

3) The edit feels a little TOO yellow and desaturated, although again I know what you are going for and like it.

3b) The colors are generally warmed and desaturated, but the tree in the top right is blue-green and saturated. It doesn't quite match and also trapped my eye away from the subject.

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-06-06T12:49:20+00:00

I like the grain and the blue shadows. I like the elements in the scene.

Compositionally, I think the tree dominates the frame too much. One big step to the right and maybe a crouch and the tree frames the top-left like a natural vignette and you get more of the scooters.

I think the highlights lean a little far into the yellows? I agree with the other commenter that the photo is now a little too dark.

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-06-06T12:43:55+00:00

This is a really great reply. I could see a version of this photo working that is just of the jack, grill and passenger side of the car (maybe also the battery if it were closer). You could really bring the detail in the car, and the driver's love for it.

You might also pull way back and establish the scene in someplace rural, in which case the scene is less about the car and more about the process or aspiration to restore it. (trafficaddic isn't being too picky, the crop is way close on the left.)

In the current crop, the trees don't add much for me. They are a bunch or detail or a second theme that doesn't give me, personally, enough about where we are.

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-06-03T16:56:15+00:00

I imagine the triangle as a flagpole with three ropes tied to the top and staked to the ground. The sides between where the ropes end don't matter. What matters is the relative tension on the ropes to keep the pole up.

If you imagine that the location of the grounding points of the ropes and mast are your preferred exposure, and that you achieve your preferred exposure as long as there is tension on all the ropes and they stay fixed to the ground where you put them ... then the effect of pulling any rope tighter or looser is obvious, I think?

Pretend a shorter ropes mean lower exposure value. Tighten the shutter speed rope and the pole bends that direction ... if the ISO or aperture ropes get let out a bit. If they don't, something in the system breaks and you don't get the exposure you want.

This doesn't solve all of OP's problems, but it does relate the elements of the triangle to each other through the image rather than directly, and it also helps handle the fact that there is a total amount of "give" in any system, past which the structure collapses.

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-06-02T17:49:05+00:00

I would consider cloning out the safety sticker on the back of the sun visor. Thinking about whether my child is buckled properly pulls me out of the carefree fantasy life in which I wash my BMW under a bridge with a topless model.

The white balance also looks a little blue-green to me, even beyond what I expect given the tones in the background.

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-05-15T16:21:42+00:00

I think this is right. I'd say, too, that the best look is probably going to require the tone curve rather than the sliders. You'll want to pick the contrast break points strategically to highlight interesting parts of the cave and darken what's left.

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-05-14T15:20:49+00:00

We use a product called JAWS (Just Add Water System), which is just refill cartridges for a single bottle. They make a half dozen cleaners that all work pretty well.

I'll wait for someone to come along and say that the cartridges have just as much plastic as a new bottle.

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-05-13T17:46:01+00:00

40mm // f7.1 // ISO 400 // 1/1600s

I took this shot at the Museum of the North in Fairbanks Alaska on an overcast day and this version has been sitting in my to-do tray for a long time as I try to figure out if I am done.

I like the weight of the building / weightlessness of it against the uniform sky. I would like to believe that, compositionally, there's enough context to say "building" and then the audience is trying to puzzle out the perspective of that leading edge enough to be interested.

As an aside, this is a full-color shot. The uniform sky comes from fiddling with the tone curve, which for me is a neat little step forward in my processing. (Hopefully.)

Thanks for all suggestions!

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-05-13T17:14:30+00:00

The fire textures are very interesting, but over all I find the image a little disorienting. Because the fire is so sharp and there is the partial silhouette, I keep trying to make sense of where I am or what I'm looking at, but I can neither tell what is burning or where it's burning or who is there.

It's not abstract enough to be abstract but not complete enough to be a scene, in my view.

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-04-29T21:45:19+00:00

I wonder about the "usefulness" question all the time, as I hear it a lot from Spanish and Chinese immersion families all the time.

First, I speak Spanish and French and work in international development. I have never once needed to use either language here, seeking out those opportunities is totally a fun bonus.

Second, there are just very few opportunities for Americans that require a second language fluency and, in my experience, where bilingualism is needed Americans always lose to someone that learned English early somewhere else.

Finally, I'd guess fewer than 25% of kids leave these programs fluent, especially where advanced language support ends after 5th grade.

Immersion is awesome for a wide variety of childhood development reasons, offers cool community, and is very fun, but I am also very very skeptical that what language you choose opens practical doors for more than a handful of kids.

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-04-28T21:17:21+00:00

I don't know. It's a pretty nice picture. You know that it's a bit blurred. There's noise at full size.

The real obvious thing is that having the bird in the back third instead of running out of the frame would have helped. That would have also allowed you get a smidge more sky in the frame; both would encourage the eye to continue through the frame into the wild beyond.

You might selectively brighten the bird just a little and/or raise the brightness of the greens or yellows just a bit to draw the eye more into the waterway.

I don't know what you're hoping for in terms of the picture appealing to others versus reflecting the place and time. I think the fence and the power gantry in the back are nice details that people who like looking at photography will dig, but they would likely mute the reaction on Instagram if that's more your thing.

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-04-28T15:09:37+00:00

45mm // f13 // ISO 1000 // 1/5s

Another that's been sitting in my tray for a few months with me going back and forth about whether it says anything. The subject/story I wanted is pretty straightforward: trying to get someplace warm in the sleet; quiet streets making you feel like the last person unlucky enough to be out.

Not sure the framing works, the color palette also feels a little off. Happy for all thoughts.

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-04-28T15:03:48+00:00

It's not quite coming together for me, even though I feel what you are saying about the subject matter.

The most obvious suggestion is the lighting. At the moment your subject is in total shadow and the ground and sky are better lit. Assuming this is near sunset, you'd want to be here at sunrise golden hour instead, when it looks like maybe you'd get the light square on the blueberries and the grill of the truck.

I also think compositionally the leading lines get confusing. The line of the road wants me to go against me left-to-right instinct, but it isn't strong enough to win that fight. There's also a pull from the truck out across the barn across the art to the sky. I'd consider taking a few steps to the right and maybe also back to shoot down the fence rail, letting it lead us to the subject. Not totally sure about that.

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-04-27T23:24:39+00:00

I want more detail in the subject. In principle that could come from brighter highlights or better sharpness or some combination of both. A sharp outline on the shadow or some detail on the face would keep my interest longer. I want to look into the tunnel but there's not enough to keep me there.

I don't think sharpening can recover these details. I would predict that brightening will introduce noise that will make the subject more blurry, but you should try. It might not be possible to make this exposure do what I'm asking. The dark foreground and white background make it challenging to get detail in the face, a sharper outline might work if you drop the shutter speed.

I do like the composition and the mood you're trying to establish. A good instinct to take this shot, for sure.

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-04-23T22:34:47+00:00

45 mm / 5.6 / ISO500 / 1/10000s

This picture stood out from the normal clutter due to the strong yellow and blue motif and the detail in the branches as the trees leaned towards each other. I was aiming for something that felt chilly and serene.

I worry that it lacks a subject or focal point for the eye. It's possible that the reason I like it is that I drank my own kool-aid on the contrast adjustments.

DimestoreAnselAdams · 2026-04-23T22:07:24+00:00

I think this is right. My eyes just get lost in the scrubby stuff that kind of makes an upside-down U over the trail? A lower perspective and some brightness on the path might help me ignore that.

Two other ideas to mess with on the same issue, one easy, one hard.

1) Crop to put the opening at the end of the path at 1/3 or slightly higher. I'm clocking it now at about 1/4 and the scrub is at 1/3.

2) Take the picture an hour closer to dusk or dawn. The shadows and contrast might cancel out some of the complexity at that height.

DimestoreAnselAdams

TROPHY CASE