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Submitted: January 9, 2011
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Winter Walkerby ~Meowgli

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Happy New Year everyone!

A shot from the beginning of December of my favourite windmill

I've been wanting a shot of this location in the snow ever since January. It would have been perfect back then with our immense amounts of snow but with it being on the top of a hill only accessible by backroads I've never really fancied my chances of getting up there.

On this occasion the snow had been around for a few days and the gritters had been out, enabling me to at least get within walking distance. I was actually on my way to meet some friends and had merely factored in a half-hour stop-off to capture sunset at the windmill en route. Just a mere minute after being at the location with the light starting to go off, some old dude rocks up in his car and makes all the motions like he's about to walk into my shot. I considered asking him to hold on a sec, but knowing me he would have been waiting til after dark so I bit my tongue and just said a polite hello. A sudden gut instinct also told me to let him walk on... somehow I just had this feeling the shot had potential to be stronger with a lone figure exploring the wintry scene. This could well be a matter of personal taste though. What do you guys reckon?

As is typically the case for these opportune shots my camera settings were completely the opposite of what would have been useful, so I used the time it took him to walk up to the mill to get myself set and ready. As he made his way back the light pretty much began to peak and I could hardly believe my luck as it hardly ever happens this way! Usually it's a case of scouting a location, returning a few times perhaps... maybe spend hours there without even taking a single frame. This day it was like baddabing baddaboom, back in the car and on to the party!

(... and seeing as I've asked for critique, the exif is 1/125s, f/8, iso 400, 40mm, tripod mounted, no filters.... and -9C!)

Adam

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~Danferno Mar 10, 2011 Hobbyist Photographer

I'm not sure if the centered horizon really works for me, my eye gets really stressed when looking at this image. I wonder what it'd look like if you went lower, while tilting the camera upwards - the man would be on the same plane as the windmill which could cause some interesting perspective-play. Also yea, I'm miles behind on my dWatch messages, so apologies if this reply is horribly late!

~Lunox-baik Feb 18, 2011 Student Photographer

superb!

~theopenroad Feb 6, 2011 Photographer

My goodness, the human element in a landscape is so often the missing piece. What a wonderful shot!

~shatinn Jan 16, 2011

Nice job Adam. The compo and the colors is lovely but I have a feeling the windmill is a lonely "figure" left behind freezing on the bare land.

~Meowgli Jan 17, 2011 Photographer

it does kind of look like they've had an argument what with their backs to one another hey?

thanks Tunde!

~FlorentCourty Jan 13, 2011

Hmmm hard to say. Something sounds strange to me here, it's like if there was 2 shots in one, I try to explain:

All that lines lead me to the windmill standing up the hill with that winter sunset, this make a scenery, and then there's that guy too walking on the cold land, like another scenery, almost disturbing for me, I don't really succeed to include him in the whole scene. Something is too much here for my eye, man or windmill: with a man that close I might have prefered a shot with "the man walking on the frozen land with the setting sun" or a shot with" the windmill standing up the hill on a cold winter day at sunset".

In fact if the guy was farther in the land he could play the role of a lone figure exploring the wintry scene in a better way I think.

Overall it's a nice shot, a different one, even if I'm a bit disturbed I especially like the lines on the field here and that sunset with stratus clouds, a nice winter scenery.

~Meowgli Jan 15, 2011 Photographer

hey man, thanks very much for a good analysis of the shot, I can see what you mean there. I have other shots without the guy and considered shooting this one without him too, but reasoned that (a) he would be easy to clone out if I wanted to, and (b) it would add a bit of context to the conditions - cold guy experiencing the snow!

... also (c) I thought I should try something different so it wasn't 'just another' shot of the windmill hehe.. I'm not 'defending' the shot by the way, I think you're right, just giving you an idea of what I was thinking when I shot it

.... I have another one more like how you describe, only partly edited but I opted to go with this one instead... here's a link, what do you think? - [link]

~FlorentCourty Jan 19, 2011

Yep I see, but you're right to try different things.

About the link: I prefere the man at this scale! Here he looks like a lone figure in the cold, very little in all ways compared to the rest... But that's just my personnal vision.

~snaphappy101 Jan 10, 2011 Hobbyist Photographer

very nice pic

~Meowgli Jan 10, 2011 Photographer

thanks!

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