Stills

Sparse, yes, but it is well balanced. The ship balances out the left half of the frame nicely.

Glad you are shooting again.
 

You mention the sunshine, but on my monitor, this appears very glum and overcast. I think it may be due to my experience with the ocean and I would expect the surf on the left side to have wider tonal values, more white in the waves, even if they were backlite.

The composition is very nice with the balance between the far ship and the activity on the beach.

And nice to having you make photos again, it has been a difficult time for you and your family.
 

Doug,

The sun is way over to the right and only just above that black strip of horizon. Don't forget how far north this is.

That said, there are clearly some big aesthetic choices here. Bringing out the whites on those waves to left changes the whole centre of attention (IMHO obviously).

Technical stuff comes into play too. Insofar as the exposure was chosen (grab shot) it was to protect the highlights to the right. Also this is a scan with my new scanner and I'm not yet happy that it is doing the right things with tones in the lower half.

I'd be interested in comments from others about the tonal choices here, if anybody feels strongly about it.
 

I'd probably let the highlights come up a bit. It seems like you could bring a little something out of the clouds and the waves without changing the focus of the picture.
 

Take my comment with a pinch of salt: I have borrowed a very old CRT monitor while my TFT is away being repaired under guarantee. The colour balance seems quite good but it is a bit dark. However, if I compare your picture with Akikana's I do find it dark overall: it looks as though you exposed for the highlights on the right without the opportunity to bring up the remainder. The beach and sky do seem a bit dark.

It may be a well-worn theme but it always work for me - the ship is a great bonus.
 

Tonality is fine for me. It emphasises well the warmth eminating from that pasty sunshine. The stick is picked out well and the characters on the beach balance well with the horizon ship. There's so much space at work here that though nothing fills it out it doesn't seem particulalry empty. A rather clever eye trick.
 

I'll be interested to see this when I get my proper screen back.
 

Quite enjoyable. I'm always a fan of "empty" space like this.

I don't have a big issue with the tonality, though if it were mine, I'd probably at least try it with a little bit more contrast in the sky. The highlights on the right in the water are perfect though, so you would not want to water down that effect.
 

Regarding the tones, it all depends on them being a choice or not.

As a choice, who would I be to complain? I do find it at least a bit too dull for my taste and also for what is actually happening there. This scene is of someone playing with dogs under the Sun at sea side. Not my idea of sadness. Yet, for me, the rather flat grey brings a kind of sadness.

Trying a more objective evaluation (whatever that is if even possible), I'd say the waves rendition on the left is not all that credible. At least it does not look like any waves I've seen :-) The foam tends to be whiter and have a stronger contrast with the water, especially if some Sun is shining.

All this is of course felt with my own biases, tastes and probably others things that make this rambling irrelevant.

On the picture itself, I find the tension between the boat and the characters on the beach interesting. I like the hard wet sand on beaches with large tides, much more so than the dry soft one and this scene conveys exactly the kind of time I like to spend there.
 

Surprisingly quickly (wonderful!), I have just received my TFT back, except that I think that they gave me a new one. I am intrigued by this picture: the sky is quite grainy and definitely dimmer than I would expect, even for those latitudes, whereas the sand is just right. To be consistent, the surf to the left is in much the same vein as the sky. And yet the whole seems to be right, but as if a painter had chosen to render it that way. In photographic terms, it looks as though a filter of some sort was used (even if not).
 

Thanks all for the thought provoking comments. I'm going to rescan this on the old (8000) scanner to see if that gives me different raw material to work with. The question of what I chose to do and what I was backed into doing by a sloppy exposure and then a new scanner will be instructive for me to disentangle.
 

The general tone of the image created in me the view of one of the UKs steely grey skies where the histogram creates a feeling of gloom all of its own :-) However I then saw that the thrower has a shadow which is not consistent with the flat feel of the image.