Sunset Sillouthes

Took this picture of my friend playing the didgeridoo at the St Kilda beach. Any Critques?

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

I like it, but I think it's over-exposed - there is too much detail in the dark areas, and not enough in the sky. Also, the bridge behind your friend looks a little funny. It is a nice shot though, and were it better exposed (and possibly boost the saturation of the sky), it could look great.

Looks great to me.

I agree that for a silhouette, you could darken it a bit.

Very good composition (bridge doesn't look funny to me) and the image has a lot of interest. I think it's important to have the title, because those of us who live right side up are not all that familiar with the didgeridoo.

It's not a very good capture in terms of both exposure and composition.

If you want to capture silhouette, you need to take exposure readings against the sky, sometimes a little under exposure would bring out your suject outline even more, make it more striking against the sky. And in this shot, sky is burned out and left you with fuzzy outlines of your friend.

In terms of composition, background is way too messy, simplicity is the key if you want to shoot silhouette. Put it this way, use the sky as a plain backdrop against your shooting subject, simple and contrasty, also do include necessary elements to go with the theme but do leave out the distracting bits. In your shot, the bridge, trees, bushes don't really contribute anything to the shot at all, quite opposite to be frank. To make this shot work, I'd get lower and angle up, zoom in on just the head, arm and whatever he's holding there, against the sky; or to get him onto the bridge and do the same pose.

For a silhouette, you're not really supposed to see he's wearing white trainers, are you?

My laptop monitor is obviously very saturated - cos I can't see any detail on the silhouette - and a lot of lovely colour and detail in the sky.... I CERTAINLY cant see trainers!

From where I'm sitting, the background is not distracting at all - cos there is no detail.

Unless you've edited the shot since the last post - perhaps your monitor is too dark(like mine) and the shot works for you.... can you look at it elsewhere?

Looks good, shame about the bridge being there.

ok.. points noted. wanted to ask him to be under the bridge but i also wanted the silhouette of the palm tree to make it more interesting.

The problem is that if this was darker (like a true silhouette) then you wouldnt 'really' know what was going on. The bridge and your friend would blend...

I would have filled with flash or like you said, place him under the bridge.... or not have him in the shot

Peter

The bridge and the person overlap and take away from a sillouhette effect. A different composition would have been better to separate the 2.