Hi, I've never posted here before, will you please be kind?

This was my favorite photo from our recent trip to Maui.
It's defective, in just about every way, but I still like it.
Does that ever happen to any of you?

Defective Photos?.... uh.. never...
:)

I could shut down the smugmug & photobucket servers if I posted every "defective photo" I ever took.
:rofl:

Can see why you really like that one. Nice balance between the water/landscape/boat.... people in the boat.

It's just a little underexposed, like I've never done that :eyes:, and is a fairly easy fix if you wanted to even 'fix' it.

Very nice. Thanks for sharing
:hi:

You are very kind!

I run into issues with the sun flares all the time. I had to reject a bunch of pictures I took in the middle of the day up at Denali because it was just too bright ... the contrast between the land and the bright white snow and clouds of Mt. McKinley was just too much for my camera to wrap its head around (at least with my limited knowledge of exposure settings, etc.)

Example...



Yikes.

If you meter the clouds you lose the foreground.... if you meter the foreground the clouds get all blowed up. Here I metered the foreground and the clouds went wacky....got all blown up and nothing got exposed properly. The "solution" is to either take two pics and mix them together or have really good "shoppin'" skills... which I don't have.
:dunce:

Many photo-editing programs have a feature that will allow you to blend the two and will automatically combine them for the best exposure (I forget the exact terminology). Some newer cameras (the D200 for instance) will even blend multiple exposures in-camera.

Shooting one frame for highlights, one for mids and one for shadow, then combining them will give you fairly accurate results.

See http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/high-dynamic-range.htm for the way this works in Photoshop CS2

Nice job.
:applause:

I was thinkin' of doing that whole dodging and burning thing since I can't wrap my little brain round' that whole masking thing.

am currently using. (will be so glad when I get Adobe Photo Elements)

Thanks for being so sweet about my practice session using your photo

I like that hole in the clouds!

finding everything fascinating, something else always catches my attention before I can beat myself upside the head for something I've done.

Me, I like your photo, it looks exciting.

You should see the exposure problem in this... the guy and canoe look like a ghost or an alien. Oh... wait... I'm posting it, so you are seeing it. Ooooooo shiny things!

Thanks for the reply! :hi:

It isn't in the Pacific Northwest, where anyone can take a snapshot and have it turn out every bit as good as Ansel Adams's best work. :eyes: (Check out my "most annoying moment of the week" thread for further explanation.)

When you get a photo that you like despite obvious flaws, that's a pretty strong indication of where your creative "soul" lies. Chances are that it's an image that has a strong emotional content that transcends mere technical problems. For example, what I get out of your photo is a sense of wildness, of "living on the edge," that is at least in part generated by the underexposure in most of the image and the sun-flare on the right. There's a sense that the world of the image is "out of control." A perfectly exposed, technically-flawless version of that same composition would probably look much "safer" and thus not as involving.

This is important because all-too-many of us (particularly those who sell images for a living) get caught up in making "perfect pictures" from an objective distance. Although those might find a more-predictable reception from a stock house or magazine publisher, their emotional temperature is dialed way too low. I've found that most of my favorites among my own images have a touch of that wildness, even if they're not as pristine as many others in my collection.

Interesting you should bring up the wildness, because that trip did get wild about 20 minutes after I took that photo. Waves were crashing through the trampolines on the Catamaran and several people had to move to other parts of the boat. Thank you for your input! :hi:

Of the land mass, potentially intersecting with the rail.

We were leaving the island of Lanai, and it was just before sunset. I wanted just "one more picture..."

I think, what I like about it is that it shows the sense of not wanting to leave (but it only shows that, to me, because I know what I was feeling!). Thanks!