Too much contrast. Or, does it work?

[Alan Hoelzle]

Took this one just for fun, thought it would not work. Single file in LR.
Has the feel of a Winter Sunburst, but..does it seem gimmicky?
Usually I rely only on sweet light.

 

[Alan Hoelzle]

Usually I don't like the sunburst effect with small apertures. There is a lack of color variation here, too, which I don't like. But, it does capture a mood. Used everything I know about LR to do it. When I get smarter, I might get Photoshop. But for now I''m still figuring out Lightroom.

 

[Ben Egbert]

I like high impact images with lots of snap and pop and color. I could not look into the sun like this so its hard to really know what it would look like in person. But this is very believable. The last thing I want is a picture that looks like the raw image.

 

[AlanLichty]

I would back off on the blacks in the clouds around the sunburst by just a bit. They seem just a tad too dark for the light in the scene. In Lightroom you can add a gradient coming down from the top and bring the blacks down for the clouds without effecting the rest of the scene.

I am not certain what you mean by gimmicky - I see a late day sun shot with a bunch of interesting elements. You have some nice water textures on an incoming wave with a reflection line heading straight out to the sun and interesting skies to boot. Classic stock photo of the Florida coast.

 

[Alan Hoelzle]

Thought about using a grad to bring down the clouds, but then determined it would not look "real".
As for brushing on black point--nice. But I've got the old version, not CC. Might have to upgrade. I would like to have that feature.

 

[JimFox]

Hey Alan,

This looks pretty nice. Pulling the blacks out of the bottom of the clouds would be a nice touch. Having the sun flare like that is fine to me, I don't see anything gimmicky about it. I am thinking you need to let go of some of these preconceived notions that you have as to what's acceptable in a photograph. You seem to be limiting yourself. My suggestion is to just go shoot and have fun. Don't worry about whether others have shot this or that too. Just go shoot the world around you and enjoy it.

 

[Alan Hoelzle]

Good to have fun, but my goal is to be great.

 

[JimFox]

Good to have fun, but my goal is to be great.

How about a little of both

 

[Alan Hoelzle]

Sounds good. Trying my best.