Definitely a creative catch, but I do feel you could've gotten more out of this photo. The shallow DOF is pretty nice, and I don't mind the blurred foreground at all, I actually think it creates a nice feel for the depth.
I do think the rather centered composition makes the photo more static than necessary, though. If you'd placed the boat more to one side of the image, you could've created a more playful composition. Also, I think the amount of grass is a little excessive. Cropping the image to a square would IMO also be a valid solution.
Still, I rather like this photo, the bright red sail does attract the attention beautifully!
thank you miles. i agree there's too much noise. It was quite late in the evening and needed fast shutter speeds because of the tele lens, no tripod. usually dont like noisy pictures, but they grains do have an effect. thanks for your tips, i'll try to make it B&W.
Nicely caught in the gap in the grass dunes, the seagulls balance out the boat quite well... BUT... the image is much too "noisey" (the coloured speckles all over the image) which is often caused by using high ISO settings. There are software programs out there that can remove some of this noise, ie Neat Image from www.neatimage.com, though the best way around it is to use lower ISO settings and a tripod if neccessary.
Have you tried converting this to black and white? Have a feeling that with more contrast and maybe a grad grey filter across the sky to add a stormy mood it would look pretty good.
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{K:163889} 8/12/2006