Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: Mjollnir on April 07, 2011, 03:07:13 pm
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Very possibly the most astoundingly lucky thing I've ever shot.
Zabriskie Point, Death Valley. Just after mid day. Light so unbelievably, insanely bright, I couldn't see my viewfinder.
I saw a runner, out in the middle of NOWHERE, running down a ridge, going to nowhere. I had no idea if I could capture the pic, but put my hands around my forehead and my EVF and hoped it would turn out well.
(http://i995.photobucket.com/albums/af71/tanngrisnir4_5/Death%20Valley/P1000483.jpg)
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It's a very decent shot of Zabriskie. The light is surprisingly good for being mid-day. But I wish you'd had a longer lens. The runner is a little too tiny.
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Splendid shot, Mjo. There's no way a small image on a 72ppi monitor can do the thing justice. A well done print at, say, 24" x 24" would make the background magnificent and bring out the runner as a fantastic anomaly. Bravo!
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I'd be curious to see what this looks like in color. Zabriskie's colors can be very interesting.
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This is a very difficult shot to take and be successful with, when you are trying to encapsulate both large and small scale elements within the single frame. You don't want to zoom in and crop out the landscape detail, which is excellent, but at the same time the runner would be more immediately identifiable to the viewer, if they filled the frame a little more. I think you have made the right choice and taken the best shot given those circumstances.
Although I might have been tempted after I had this shot in the can, to throw on a zoom and close right in and take a vertical, then zoom out a way and take another vertical and repeat. Sometimes landscapes can work in what we Brits call the portrait (vertical) format, rather than landscape (horizontal) format - it might have worked, but then it might not, but I would have been very tempted to try it I think.
Photobloke
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This is a very difficult shot to take and be successful with, when you are trying to encapsulate both large and small scale elements within the single frame. You don't want to zoom in and crop out the landscape detail, which is excellent, but at the same time the runner would be more immediately identifiable to the viewer, if they filled the frame a little more. I think you have made the right choice and taken the best shot given those circumstances.
Although I might have been tempted after I had this shot in the can, to throw on a zoom and close right in and take a vertical, then zoom out a way and take another vertical and repeat. Sometimes landscapes can work in what we Brits call the portrait (vertical) format, rather than landscape (horizontal) format - it might have worked, but then it might not, but I would have been very tempted to try it I think.
Photobloke
Thanks for the detailed comments! I've posted this elsewhere on a private board, in much larger format, and the small, extra upsizing of the runner that that creates seems to make a big difference. I don't know how to here, or if it's even allowed, or I would have, but the intent of showing an active, if anonymous, human up against a huge, impersonal landscape is what I was going for.
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I'd be curious to see what this looks like in color. Zabriskie's colors can be very interesting.
As it is spoken, so let it be done! My g/f was there w/her 5D, same exact place, and got him, in color, just a few seconds off of mine.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/robinblackphotography/5467376110/
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The color shot has the runner more prominent and positioned much better compositionally.
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I prefer the color and the positioning of the runner but thy cropping of the B&W.
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The color shot has the runner more prominent and positioned much better compositionally.
+1
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The color shot has the runner more prominent and positioned much better compositionally.
I'd agree except for the fact that the deep and ominous gulch on the right side of the B&W is cut off in the color version. One of the striking things about the B&W is the fragility of the runner contrasted with the massive and threatening terrain.
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I prefer the color and the positioning of the runner but thy cropping of the B&W.
The B&W shot is uncropped. As you see it is as it was shot.
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The runner just brings so much scale to the picture. Without him, the image would be nothing. Very nice. Regards Heinz
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This thing really requires a huge print ....
Very nice one ...
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The BW image is rather drab compared to the colour version. Moreover, it took me about 30 secs to find the runner in the BW version, so that tells me the effect of the runner in the BW version is almost negligible. The colour is splendid, as Slobodan has pointed out, illustrating the forms colours, shapes and rhythm of the land with a combination of shadow and light.
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Everybody seems to be making pronouncements on these photographs on the basis of 6 to 8 inch samples viewed on 72ppi monitors. At that size and resolution you simply can't make any reasonable determination. In order even to guess at the comparison between these images you have to visualize them in at least 24" x 24" print size. At that size the whole situation is different.