The first image has been cropped to place the drain a little more off centre. The edges and comers have then been burnt in using Photoshop to darken them. This is to direct the eye into the frame.
The second image represents two points. The tutor suggested boosting the colours of the two signs a tadd, to make them stand out a bit more. I used the sponge tool in Photoshop set to saturation and pulled the yellow and blue out.
Horizontal and vertical lines. It was suggested to try this image in black-and-white to see how the tonal ranges were affected. I tried it with various different (digital) filters but I have to be honest, none of them seemed to make it very exiting. I think this may be down to the lack of distinct tones in the subject. As I noticed in my exercise on colour, grey doesn't seem to change very much.
The next image rates as my second most favourite from the series I shot for this task. As there was a darker edge along the left of the image it was suggested I might like to try and balance the shot by darkening the right hand side. I used the burn tool in Photoshop to do this.
The following image suffers a bit from a background that is too light and no clear point of focus. I have tried to darken the background and lighten the railing. I can of course not change the point of focus in the image. I think there are times when you may just have to go and take the shot again and this is one of them! The large light patch in the background is very overpowering. I guess you could clone something over the light spot but for this image I don't think it is worth it.
The final photograph is my favourite of the series. Just to give it a slightly better balance the tutor suggested that the bottom right corner could be darkened a bit. I first tried this with the burn tool in Photoshop but it made the bottom right a bit 'muddy' so I tried it a different way. I duplicated the layer and darkened this second layer using a levels adjustment layer. I then painted on the mask to reveal the darker part of the bottom layer. This darkened the bottom a bit without it being too obvious.
On the whole I liked this exercise and was very pleased with the feedback I received from my tutor. Most of the comments related to the post processing stage and once pointed out made perfect sense. I agree that most of the issues raised have improved the finished photographs.
I have also been given some information about hyperfocal focussing with which I will be experimenting and some more names of photographers I may wish to look into. These are Minor White, Harry Callahan, Edward Weston and Walker Evans.
