Trainee Sailors by Martin Gray

Martin Says… I took this photo while on the South Coast on a blisteringly hot day. The boats are a group of trainee dinghy sailors who were out in the bay when I visited this stretch of the Dorset coast. What caught my eye was the look of the sea surface and the cliff line with the beach in the haze. I recall that I was probably using Landscape mode on my EOS 1200D as I’m not really confident with using the Manual, Tv or Av modes. I’d love to know how I might have taken greater control over the picture.

Brian Says… Fortunately there was a complete set of metadata in the picture Martin sent me, and this shows that his camera was actually set to Program mode and Partial metering was set.

Firstly I would zoom in a little closer to reduce the space on the left of the picture, which seems at odds with the apparent direction of the sailors. I feel the boats should take a larger share of the picture as they are the point of interest. Taking a crop to reduce the amount of sky and space on the left makes the picture look better to me.

I’m not keen on the tones in the of the picture, I really want it to feel warmer and more inviting. A change of white balance to Cloudy or Shade may have helped. I do also find my eye is drawn to the buoy in the far distance, so I’d edit this out.