Outdoor Photography Photo Critique

Your eye for metaphor and for catching a passing mood is good. I always am drawn to images of solitary beings walking and playing the boundaries of two disparate worlds.

The first thing I noticed was that your subjects of the man and dog were placed smack dab in the middle of your composition. In most cases I wouldn't do that and I'm not sure that it works to its full advantage here, although it doesn't really impact the mood and message you deliver in your image. I also think that the distance and the size of the man and dog, while emphasizing the grandeur of the expanse of ocean, at the same time diminishes the power of your central figures and your desire to show the joy and friendship of the two. A closer, telephoto approach to your subjects with some cropping to place more beach and ocean in front of the dog and man might give some power and sense of movement to the image as well. I'm not sure whether the two dots in the ocean are kayaks, small boats or buoys. But they tend to distract the eye away from your subject. I'd clone them out if you have the ability with photo processing software like Photoshop.

I think the focus on this image, while fairly good, is not spot on which is surprising because shooting a backlit image as you have here usually results in a very fast shutter speed or small aperture. It could be that the strong backlight is causing some haloing behind the man which appears as blur. I can't say for sure because of the resolution limitations for posting your image here.

I would comment on this but have no information provided as to what shutter speed, aperture, exposure compensation or ISO you may have been shooting at, to make any meaningful suggestions. The histogram for this image appears to be stacked up on both the shadow and highlight side of the curve with some fairly good clipping going on in the highlights, this due to the bright sunlight off the water no doubt and the contrast heavy results that can be expected from a back lit image.

On my screen the colors appear to be mainly browns and grays with a bit of magenta and orange in the sky. This rather monochromatic effect is also common with backlit images and gives it a more pensive and brooding look than a brightly colored image. The use of a graduated neutral density filter to minimize the highlight blowouts on the ocean without darkening the foreground may have been effective here.

Despite my many comments and suggestions above I do like this image. I like the mood and the message that it conveys to the eye.