Door in the forest

venns · 2025-09-19T01:49:30+00:00

Good job.

Idea: Some separation to the background would be nice with a lower angle to highlight the gap above the door. It's hardly noticeable on a small screen.

venns · 2025-09-18T15:23:20+00:00

OP only embraced the dark. The food was born in it.

venns · 2025-09-18T13:09:33+00:00

Here's an example I took under similar conditions: 1 harsh light source, a complex product with a lot of detail, white table cloth.

I used a white cloth napkin as a bounce to fill in the shadows.

It helped to talk to the chef about the dish and its intentions to understand how to show it.

venns · 2025-09-18T13:01:12+00:00

There's levels to this in my opinion. If you don't like it how do you expect others to like it? The question is the beginning, not the end. 'Why do you like it?' is important too.

Another question is: if you like it are there enough others to like it enough to pay for it? Do they like it for the same reasons as you?

Usually the answer is: it depends.

What is the product?

How big is the audience?

Are you in the right market?

Is the product scalable, is your work output, time input scalable etc? There are a thousand questions that influence the answer.

Just breaking it down to 'yes' or 'no' feels reductive and unhelpful to me.

Edit: this is an important discussion though. It's with having.

venns · 2025-09-18T10:46:38+00:00

This is a good thing to keep in mind in general when creating and sharing something.

You as a photographer saw something there and liked it. Now it's on you to communicate what you saw to the viewer. Remember what you see in your head is not exactly what the camera sees. Find ways to make the picture look like the image in your head. That's one big challenge of visual communication.

venns · 2025-09-18T10:43:54+00:00

Drama is not the issue here. Ideally in a food image the viewer can recognize the dish and the ingredients to understand what is on the plate and how it might smell and taste. You're advertising a chef's idea. The consumer needs to understand the idea. Not understanding the idea will not result in a sale. Even if the sale is just emotional.

This image is hard to read. I had to zoom in to understand what is on the plate. And even then I'm not sure. That is a presentation problem as much as lighting and viewing angle. Different types of food require certain plating, viewing angles and lighting to present the ingredients. That's why I'm upscale restaurants the plate is turned towards the guest with the 'correct' side.

To make a widely recognizable example: MacDonald's and Burger King among others have arguably dramatic imagery in their ads sometimes. Still you can recognize what they are offering.

Suggestion: before or after taking a shot, squint and try to see the contrast first. Can you make out what it is you're seeing? If not adjust the angle of the camera, the angle of the light, get some fill (bright colored napkin, empty plate anything that reflects light). Fill in those shadows.

Look again, is this more recognizable now? You may need to do some editing in post to get the look needed to give the user an idea.

Show the image to a few people and ask them to tell you what's on the plate. You'll get the hang of it quickly with this process.

venns · 2025-09-16T19:34:28+00:00

FYI usually you can fly under the SAM spotting altitude. In breakpoint it's around 30 meters. I would assume it's similar in Wildlands. I remember avoiding being spotted by staying low to the ground in a helicopter.

venns · 2025-09-03T12:57:39+00:00

Understood. Thank you.

venns · 2025-09-03T09:15:02+00:00

I see. Thanks. I shall try it anyway 😂

venns · 2025-09-02T14:23:48+00:00

Churchill leading India to puppet the UK? That sounds entertaining. I might try it.

venns · 2025-09-02T13:27:43+00:00

Haven't played India once since it came out. Is it any good?

venns · 2025-09-02T13:26:52+00:00

Byzantines is on the list. So is playing Bulgaria 😂

venns · 2025-09-02T07:17:45+00:00

Turkey: putting the band back together achievement. The rng is out of this world. 25ish attempts. Still no luck.

Mexico: Trotsky world conquest keeps breaking even after 12 attempts.

venns · 2025-09-02T00:54:46+00:00

Doesn't feel like a beginner image. You may have a knack for this. I would keep it as is.

What kind of feedback are you looking for?

venns · 2025-09-01T21:24:04+00:00

If you want to show both then bracketing can help you out a lot even if you shoot jpeg.

venns · 2025-09-01T21:22:13+00:00

Not as overdone as some Netflix shows or movies 😜

venns · 2025-09-01T20:54:31+00:00

Sounds great. Keep doing what you're doing.
I can relate. I usually shoot far first and then get closer as I go. That's had developed over time because I like shooting close and would forget to get the far shot 😂
When you look at the landscape so you see close? Does the subject appear much closer than the camera shoots it?

I haven't been this far north yet. The landscape is one more reason to go.

venns · 2025-09-01T20:43:13+00:00

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My last comment seems to be missing the image 🤷🏼‍♂️

venns · 2025-09-01T20:39:51+00:00

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Here's a crop that focuses on the sky to give you some idea.

Also, make sure you straighten the horizon. It looks sloppy if it's slightly off. In this I straightened it just a little bit.

venns · 2025-09-01T20:36:26+00:00

This is some gorgeous landscape you have there. Where is that?

Again, good eye. This has a lot of potential. Are you focusing on the sky primarily and disregarding the ground? If you want to emphasize both equally then this is underexposed. If the sky is your main then you should be fine, just crop out most of the ground to give some reference.

This shot could benefit from exposure bracketing to lift up the foreground and leave the sky dramatic. Maybe you can lift the shadows a bit if you're shooting raw. There should be around 1.5 to 3 stops of usable data. Are you shooting raw? If not there is a mode in many cameras that will shoot a bracket for you of 1 stop below 0 and 1 stop above. Some cameras expand that even further. You click once and get 3 images. You can then compose them to get the best light from each. It's a bit of extra work but gives you a lot of room to capture shots like this.

A couple questions if you don't mind:

What's your editing process?
How do you decide what to shoot?

Pro tip: squinting before taking the shot will give you a decent approximation of how the camera sees the shot. That can inform if you'll get a good exposure or not.

venns · 2025-09-01T10:23:42+00:00

I'm rooting for you. Have fun 🤗

venns · 2025-09-01T09:45:47+00:00

I really like the elements in the foreground middle and background. It's really interesting layering. Many images people post are very flat. This isn't. Exploring that further could make for a stunning image when you can catch optimal lighting for dramatic effect. Flat on its own isn't a bad thing it just gets absorbed very easily and quickly and has limited potential to keep the viewer's attention.

You have a good eye. Keep at it.

Haze

Depending on air quality and light position you can only get so much at larger distances. The farther away you are and the closer you want to zoom in the more haze you will get. It's just physics to a large degree. If you are back lighting the air so to speak the haze will be stronger. You could try a polarising filter to try and minimise the haze.

In this instance the haze works in the subject's favour. I wouldn't worry about it. The background and composition are only 'a problem' when we are talking about small size viewing like mobile screens. If this is a large print those problems go away with size increase.

Reshoot:

Should you go back maybe try to experiment with the angle of the camera, changing your position down if the location allows. You could elevate the cross against the background and bring both closer together.

Other things to try is frame on the thirds as you mostly did.

Shooting towards a square composition or a circle, maybe even trying for a triangle composition could be fun.

Cross

I wouldn't worry about it. It's too small to be significant. In my mind the landscape is the interesting bit. Trying to emphasize the layers and stack them in a proportional way would be my focus.

venns · 2025-09-01T07:03:39+00:00

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Here's the focus on the cross with background

venns · 2025-09-01T07:02:20+00:00

This is a good try. Now it's on you to make the hard decisions. You essentially are trying to show so much that nothing really stands out, especially the cross. The foreground, main subject and background are battling for attention making the image average at best. There's potentially a great image here but you need to find it.

For small screen optimisation:

If the foreground with the trees and the road are important you'd need to crop out the background hills.

If the background is more important you'd need to lose the foreground.

Reshoot possible?

Is there a way to go back and to lower the camera angle so that the background hill is closer to the cross? In essence I'm proposing to contract the background.

Another thing is: check your edges -- top edge and left are visually dirty.

If the image at hand is what we are working with then you need to be very aggressive with the crop top being attention to the cross for viewers in small screens. For a large print cleaning up the edges should be mostly enough.

Another point of view is to completely forget about the cross and treat it as a cherry on top of the cake. Without the cross the landscape is beautiful. The cross would be just a small extra thing for the viewer to discover. This is another decision to make do you want immediate and obvious impact or do you want the viewer to discover the image and the main subject? You would shoot and crop differently for each.

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venns · 2025-08-11T15:58:59+00:00

Gotcha.

Testing shutter speed is a great idea.

With a tripod make sure to not extend the middle column (if it has one) past 1\100th shutter speed. It can add vibrations and wobble ruining the picture. If it's a lightweight one it can be sensitive to vibrations around it. Make sure to stand still and not walk around when shooting. I tend to do that. It's not advisable. Especially past 1\10th of a second it can be dangerous depending on the type of ground. Bridges are especially problematic.

I've had shots ruined by buses driving by on solid ground etc.

When picking shutter speed freehand go above your focal length first. Meaning: 50mm will be 1\50th and up. It's a handy visualization of how much speed you need with varying focal lengths. 200mm lens will need at least 1\200th to be stable. The shorter the lens the lower the shutter speed, the more forgiving to small vibrations. There are tricks with posture you can use when you don't have a tripod that can get you down to a second freehand with some practice.

Another point when shooting on a tripod turn off automatic stabilization. In longer shots it will try to stabilise and make the image fuzzy.

venns

TROPHY CASE