Beginner B&W landscapes

I have no idea how good or bad this photo is- I'd like critique on it, more from framing than post processing, of which I don't do much.

I like it! What should you do to make better? If you want to do some post work on it, try cropping it into a pano by cropping off about 2/3s of the grass in the foreground and 1/3 of the sky. This will bring the cattle closer to the viewer and IMHO improve the photo. Also you have a very dirty sensor. Clone out the spots in the sky and clean your sensor.

Before I saw Mark's response, I was thinking nearly the exact same thing: vertical cropping and sensor dust

Adding one item, I think the width could be cropped as well. The right edge of the picture doesn't add much (in my opinion). Also, by cropping so that the cattle reach the edges of the frame, then the viewer gets more of a sense that they could extend well beyond the edges and who knows how far. When there is dead space horizontally, the viewer sees and feels that the subject(s) have ended. Of course, this all depends on your intent in what you wanted to capture.

Exactly the same as the other 2 posters. This screams pano to me. That would put more emphasis on the interesting parts (the cattle and the mountains)

Agree with the above comments. It needs to be trimmed down, the sky is adding little to the image, and it seems to be lacking a subject. Even landscapes need a subject.

rrblint wrote in post #19069612
I like it! What should you do to make better? If you want to do some post work on it, try cropping it into a pano by cropping off about 2/3s of the grass in the foreground and 1/3 of the sky. This will bring the cattle closer to the viewer and IMHO improve the photo. Also you have a very dirty sensor. Clone out the spots in the sky and clean your sensor.

Exactly what I was thinking as soon as I saw the photo. That would give you a technically "correct" photo, but I would use that as your starting point. Sometimes correct is boring.

Play with some different crops, try a color version, add a spaceship, etc. Have fun with it!

Honor where the detail lands in a frame. This is a panoramic because all the subject detail is in the middle in a panoramic format. Let the content guide you. Empty space such as sky or grass does not deliver detail to the eye. This is what the viewer is looking for in a landscape. The rest of the image is lovely. Well done. Will make a nice panoramic print to hang. And I think B/W is a nice choice.

I agree with other posters that this photo is a great start, but could benefit a lot from cropping. I'd crop it vertically to a bit right of the white cattle, just cutting out the silver silos. That gives you the white cattle looking into the frame from the right, and balanced by the black one that has more visual weight because it seems to be looking at the camera. It also gets rid of the distracting white building. I'd crop off a bunch of the grass because it doesn't seem to add much and the shadow on the low left is distracting. I like it with a lot of sky to give a feeling of big open never ending landscape, but that is a matter of personal preference and what 'story' you want to tell with the image. I like the B&W for this photo and your processing.

So these are suggestions for a crop of this image, but if you live close, definitely go back and shoot this again. Think about if you can find something more interesting in the grass that might lead you to the cattle. Think of how the cattle are positioned and does that help the composition? Shoot it in a variety of weather conditions and see what you like best.

You are not close enough to cows. And dust on the sensor is visible.

Teton.... based on all this info.... did you do any rethinking on this image? Would be interested where you took it.. or were you happy with what you had, which is fine too.

Croasdail
Sorry that it took so long to reply.
First of all. I got a sensor cleaning kit. I have a lot of floaters in my eyes, and I am going to blame my missing the dusty sensor on that.
Secondly, I learned that I have to have a more clearly defined goal when I take a picture. My goal when I took that picture was to show a typical Montana farm against the eastern slope of the Rockies.
Third- I watched a Tube video of a fine art photographer (name has slipped my mind), that took black and white images, using animals placed in the picture to show the huge scale of the landscape- I want to try to emulate that. Instead of giraffes and elephants, I will have to use cows, deer, elk and antelope. One tricky part of that for me is learning how much foreground to include.
I was more than a little thrilled to get the feedback on my photo.
The mountain range in that photo is what I see out of my living room window, so I intend to do lots more practice. I've become rather taken up with the idea of black and white.
Thanks to you and all the others that commented on my photo. I learned a lot.


Fred

If it would be possible to get closerto your foreground cows it would help eliminate some of that pasture at the bottom but also accentuate the distance scale since you have cowsdispersed over the depth. I would like to see more. Nice work.

Fred, as a rule of thumb with landscapes try to identify what it is you like about a view. The trick then is to guide the viewer to feel the same way as you did, so think about how to to direct the viewer. If you are clear on what your subject is, ensure that takes up a lot of the frame. Everything else is then how you move around to find elements that draw the eye to the subject - if they don’t draw the eye to the subject or add to the narrative about the subject, try not to include them. So I this shot, you wanted a farm against the rockies. I didn’t see the farm at first at all! You could get closer to the farm buildings by using a long zoom to make the farm take up more space in the shot, compress distance using the zoom so the rockies are big and towering over the farm. The grass adds little and would be best left out I’d the image, and the same with the sky. The cows distract but could be context, maybe a tighter crop could have 1 or2 cows for context, rather than the whole field for the eye to get lost in. You’ve done the technical photography well, it’s just down to composing with purpose now to ge great result.

I really like this image and how it is processed. I'm one that generally tries to avoid centered images. I realize the sky is also cloudless in the upper part of the frame, but in my opinion, the amount of grass in the foreground seems to move the eye more to the bottom of the frame. It would be more dynamic if some of that was removed.