Nam Sang Wai

Michael Wong

Some alternate views by Moose

First, to me, the bottom is muddy, with undifferentiated tonal values. This would be OK in many situations, but I find that people tent to be drawn to images of other people or animals, so I find this frustrating. The person should be more visible or a silhouette and the dog a at least a little lighter.

Then the top part is washed out looking next to the deep bottom part.The trees and mountain could use more definition.

Here's a couple of takes on those ideas. Roll the mouse over the image to see one alternate and click it to see going further. Scroll down for more possibiliities.

For me, the huge undifferentiated expanse of sky overwhelms the rest of the image. Also, lightening the bottom reveals some artifact, possibly from the scan. Cropping a lot of sky and a little of the bottom strengthens the original composition to my eye.

Another way to look at this image is that it contains at least two images that are complete in themselves, which tends to dilute the visual coherence and impact. One is a classic sky/water reflection composition where the dog, person and pier are distracting. (As a note on formal composition, the large tree follows the rule of thirds twice.)

Then I see an image of human and dog in quiet nature that becomes intimate and contemplative without the sky and trees. Again, the dog's head ends up in a rule of thirds position, and now being brighter pulls the focus from the tree. Is it better with a softer tree (roll), or no tree (click)?without the tree reflection.

Finally, there are some glitches in my examples, like a little haloing around the tree and along the shore in the reflections. They are meant to be illustrations of possibilities, not finished work. That's all that's practical for illustrations based on a small JPEG.