Critique Blue Hour and the Cherry Blossom

[uupreti]

I always took the cherry blossom after sunrise but tried something different this year and shot one in blue hour. Last year, I reached at Tidal Basin at around 6:30 am and couldn't find a single parking spot. This year, I decided to go bit earlier and took advantage of early morning blue hour. As always, your comments are welcome.

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[Mike Buckley]

Very nice composition! I would like to have seen the result of a bit of fill flash used on the blossoms.

You got very lucky using a shutter speed of 25 seconds without getting motion blur in the blossoms (at least when viewing the small image file displayed here).

 

[CAJames]

Lovely image, but I agree the "cherry blossom" part is kinda lost.

 

[uupreti]

I agree on cherry part being dark but I tried to bump up exposure little bit to make it more visible and that made whole picture little washed out. Here is the version with little more light and let me know what is your thoughts.

And yes I got lucky about the wind on this photo. I have other shots where trees are blurred in long exposure.

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[uupreti]

And here are couple of shots of MLK Memorial hitting with the sunlight. I tried one focusing on MLK and other on Cherry but not sure which one is better composition. I love your inputs on these as well.

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[Mike Buckley]

I agree on cherry part being dark but I tried to bump up exposure little bit to make it more visible and that made whole picture little washed out.

I prefer the mood of the first photo. If you have the post-processing skill to select and brighten only the cherry blossoms, that would be my preference. It's an important skill to learn if you haven't gotten that far along the learning curve.

The first version of MLK is really nice and different.

 

[Allan]

Like the first version of MLK.

 

[marine 337]

And here are couple of shots of MLK Memorial hitting with the sunlight. I tried one focusing on MLK and other on Cherry but not sure which one is better composition. I love your inputs on these as well.

View attachment 1635516 View attachment 1635517

That first one of MLK is a wow and powerful shot.

 

[Terri French]

These are so pretty. I love the first Martin Luther King one!!

 

[uupreti]

I prefer the mood of the first photo. If you have the post-processing skill to select and brighten only the cherry blossoms, that would be my preference. It's an important skill to learn if you haven't gotten that far along the learning curve.

The first version of MLK is really nice and different.

Thanks for your continued feedback. I tried harder last night and came up with this version.

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[Mike Buckley]

This most recent version is very tasteful and by far my favorite. Very well done!

 

[uupreti]

This most recent version is very tasteful and by far my favorite. Very well done!

Thank you so much for your guidance. I couldn't see what I was missing before your comment. Now, I can clearly see what was missing in that photo. It's still not the best but I think it's going into right direction.

Thanks again Mike!

 

[Mitchell]

This last version hits the sweet spot. Nice job of working a challenging exposure to improve your final photo. It's amazing what detail is still in there in some underexposed areas.

 

[menbrial]

I prefer the mood of the first photo. If you have the post-processing skill to select and brighten only the cherry blossoms, that would be my preference. It's an important skill to learn if you haven't gotten that far along the learning curve.

The first version of MLK is really nice and different.

No skill needed to do this with Nikon Nx2 can be done in 2 sec with u points

 

[Mike Buckley]

It's still not the best

My thinking is that any further adjustment would be attending to a matter of taste rather than a correction as in this most recent change that attended to a fundamental flaw.

 

[acnomad]

Kudos on learning the PP to bring out the cherry blossoms. It is truly an improvement on the original image. What technique did you use?

 

[uupreti]

Kudos on learning the PP to bring out the cherry blossoms. It is truly an improvement on the original image. What technique did you use?

I used the combination of Graduated Filter, Adjustment brush tool and Radial filter on Lightroom.

 

[Binnur]

Your last revision works well for me. A beautiful image! The strong part of the reflection of the moon is a small distraction for me though. If the image was mine I would just clone out that strong bottom part as it doesn't add to the image anyway

 

[uupreti]

Your last revision works well for me. A beautiful image! The strong part of the reflection of the moon is a small distraction for me though. If the image was mine I would just clone out that strong bottom part as it doesn't add to the image anyway

Thank you. I didn't notice it until you mentioned it. Now that is the first thing I see in my picture