Mersea Sunset (well almost!)

[StuartR]

Not sure about this one.

I was sitting at Mersea one evening recently hoping for a nice sunset but it never really happened. I took this shot on the way back to the car because I liked the light. I went for a square crop only because I needed to get rid of some distracting clutter on the right of the picture - made a change for a landscape though I thought?.

Keeper or recycle bin?

[Ian]

Re: Mersea Sunset (well almost!)

Not sure about this one.

I was sitting at Mersea one evening recently hoping for a nice sunset but it never really happened. I took this shot on the way back to the car because I liked the light. I went for a square crop only because I needed to get rid of some distracting clutter on the right of the picture - made a change for a landscape though I thought?.

Keeper or recycle bin?

The technical quality of the image is very good, but I'm not personally keen on the square format. I'd try cropping out the right hand third and make it into a portrait configuration.

Ian

[Caz]

Re: Mersea Sunset (well almost!)

Definitely a keeper.

I can see what Ian means about cropping the right third, but then you'd lose an interesting part of the sky.. A difficult decision!

Caz

[vlarcombe]

Re: Mersea Sunset (well almost!)

Hi Stuart,

I do rather like square presentations but I was also going to suggest a crop. Unlike Ian, I'd crop the sky and go for a more conventional "landscape" orientation. I think the foreground is great but there's just not enough going on in the sky for me. Cropping to just above the mast on the right seems to me to be the best option.

Vernon

[StuartR]

Re: Mersea Sunset (well almost!)

OK, here's a couple of crops roughly as suggested:








I like the sky so I'd have to go for the portrait version. Having said that, I've grown to like the original square version now

[Matt Kneale]

Re: Mersea Sunset (well almost!)

Hey Stuart
Personally I don't mind the original version's crop at all. I don't feel it changes the quality of the image in the slightest, so it's personally not an issue!

It's an odd feeling though, I mean, I look from top to bottom on your photograph, and I love the sky and the background of the image. However, I think the foreground boats distract me a little? I would have preferred to see the shot in front of these boats.

Keep up the good work
Matt

[Tinka]

Re: Mersea Sunset (well almost!)

Hi,
Top Notch image, I would get rid of the forground boats and crop just beneath the mid distance dingy leaving just a little of the space that is below the dingy and the right hand sailing craft.

[Blithe]

Re: Mersea Sunset (well almost!)

Well, I guess there's no way of pleasing everyone all of the time. I go with the portrait crop, but with slightly more off the right hand side, shifting the setting sun further to the right, and perhaps losing a little more sky. I like the boats in the foreground, the light playing on the channels in the sand lead the eye down to the rowing boat and give that feeling of space. The overall colour has a cool feel to it, but also a very still quality that you can almost hear.

[StuartR]

Re: Mersea Sunset (well almost!)

Well, I guess there's no way of pleasing everyone all of the time. I go with the portrait crop, but with slightly more off the right hand side, shifting the setting sun further to the right, and perhaps losing a little more sky. I like the boats in the foreground, the light playing on the channels in the sand lead the eye down to the rowing boat and give that feeling of space. The overall colour has a cool feel to it, but also a very still quality that you can almost hear.

Thanks for the input peeps.

And Blythe, it's Mersea, that's not lovely golden sand - it's good ol' Essex estuary MUD If I'd panned slightly to the left I'd have got the Bradwell Nuclear Reactor power station in the background

[lumix]

Re: Mersea Sunset (well almost!)

Thanks for the input peeps.

And Blythe, it's Mersea, that's not lovely golden sand - it's good ol' Essex estuary MUD If I'd panned slightly to the left I'd have got the Bradwell Nuclear Reactor power station in the background

I take it you don't work for the Essex Tourist Board then. As an ex-Essex lad myself, I have never heard a better description

[StuartR]

Re: Mersea Sunset (well almost!)

I take it you don't work for the Essex Tourist Board then. As an ex-Essex lad myself, I have never heard a better description

I'm a Man of Kent myself (i.e. from East of the Medway river) as opposed to a Kentish Man from West of the river and hence too close to London

'er indoors is an Essex girl* from Purfleet, we met when I worked for a while in West Thurrock and Tilbury - an area aptly described by a colleague as "the armpit of Essex" . I'm working down in Tilbury for a week next month and will no doubt be drinking in my old watering-hole; the, also aptly named, "World's End" public house.

We now live in north Essex, close enough to the Suffolk border to escape Essex within a few minutes - but we don't stray so far that we end up in Norfolk

*I remember telling my dear old mum that I'd met a girl in West Thurrock - "bet she's blonde, got big boobs and works behind a bar" she said.....blimey, the old girl was spot on

[lumix]

Re: Mersea Sunset (well almost!)

I'm a Man of Kent myself (i.e. from East of the Medway river) as opposed to a Kentish Man from West of the river and hence too close to London

'er indoors is an Essex girl* from Purfleet, we met when I worked for a while in West Thurrock and Tilbury - an area aptly described by a colleague as "the armpit of Essex" . I'm working down in Tilbury for a week next month and will no doubt be drinking in my old watering-hole; the, also aptly named, "World's End" public house.

We now live in north Essex, close enough to the Suffolk border to escape Essex within a few minutes - but we don't stray so far that we end up in Norfolk

*I remember telling my dear old mum that I'd met a girl in West Thurrock - "bet she's blonde, got big boobs and works behind a bar" she said.....blimey, the old girl was spot on

I made it over the boarder when I retired. Now a Silly Suffolk Boy. Lived and worked in Essex most of my life. Glad to get away from it and out into the country. Elm Park, Romford, Chadwell Heath, Ilford, Wickford and dear old Basildon, are a few places I know only to well.

[vlarcombe]

Re: Mersea Sunset (well almost!)

Hi Stuart,

I was thinking of an even more severe crop to really let the foreground dominate.

Something like in the attached file (but as you like the sky you'll probably not like this as much).

I think the varied responses are an indication that this shot has a lot to offer and is open to a wide variety of interpretations. To answer your original question, definitely a keeper .

Vernon