Sunrise at Nag's Head

[Swat2]

I'd hate to get rid of the little birds and the last shreds of foam on the beach, but do you think this would be a better picture if the dark portion of the beach at the bottom were cropped out?

I'm torn, but maybe I'm too married to every pixel I create.

I'd appreciate any other critique as well.

Thanks.....Don

http://www.pbase.com/image/21908004/original

[Leighow]

DON

You must have been hanging out at the Canadian Hole and eating crabs legs
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Now I know Avon like the back of my hand. Plus I have seen that beach from end to end ... but ... NEVER .. with light on it like you have here.

I have lots of shots with rails too! and waves in "The Perfect Storm". But not one sunset.

Just a magnificant shot.


I'm inclined to stamp birds out and just leave it with darkeness in the wave faces. But I love the dark edge -- not because of its darkenss, byt because of that last line of foamy water. Tough call.

Wow .. just wow.

HOWIE

[Swat2]

Howie

I really appreciate your kind comments. What really buggers me about the awesome color is that this image is just ONE frame of a 4 shot pano that I made to try to get it ALL! But when I went to put it all together, I found that the waves just did not cooperate, and the pano was a mess.

Thanks again

Don

[Cobra351]

Great looking shot with awesome color. I think the picture should stay as is. The birds, in my opinion, add a lot to it. Good job.

[suzie]

I would not crop it, it is a great shot and the composition is really good. If you really don't like the birds (though from your initial comment, I think that you do), you could maybe clone them out, but I agree with Cobra351, they add to the picture.

Suzie.

[Sapient]

What about cutting off the right side of the picture at the point where the black starts, and a bit off the left to make it a vertically oriented shot that keeps the birds and the foam? When I use my low-tech method of covering those areas of my screen with pieces of paper, it looks pretty good.

As it is, find it to be a very lovey picture. Nice work.

[Anthony_S]

I quite like it as is. And one of the things I like best about it is the glowing orange sunset reflexion on the wet sand, which is echoed in the water. Having this central accentuates that, so cropping out the bottom would disrupt that.

Plus the dark sand at the bottom gives it a nice weightiness.