Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: Andres Bonilla on May 16, 2011, 04:50:10 pm
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Yosemite last month, quadtone out of two exposures. I tried with one shot but the shadows start to get very noisy.
Thanks for viewing and commenting.
Andres
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Andres
OK, but what have you done to the sky? I can't believe that dark curve was there in nature, surely.
John
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Hi John, I don't know how I got such a strong vignetting, I even considered replacing the sky; maybe when working with levels I introduced the darker corner. I am thinking of a way to even out the sky without making look worse.
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I'm not crazy about the use of split toning in this shot.
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You would prefer a straight Black and White on this one? Or color?
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You would prefer a straight Black and White on this one? Or color?
Could you post the color version too?
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Here it is.
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Thanks for posting the color version. I've photographed Yosemite Valley a number of times over the years and I appreciate how challenging it can be. The problem I have with this shot is the light. You have tons of light on the mountains and in the sky, while the whole valley is in shadow. I just think it was the wrong time of day to take this picture and no amount of toning is going to fix that.
Judicious use of HDR might have been helpful here, but it might also have looked too artificial.
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Thanks for posting the color version. I've photographed Yosemite Valley a number of times over the years and I appreciate how challenging it can be. The problem I have with this shot is the light. You have tons of light on the mountains and in the sky, while the whole valley is in shadow. I just think it was the wrong time of day to take this picture and no amount of toning is going to fix that.
I see what you are saying but tons of people were at that spot precisely because of the challenge, I normally would not have stopped but I decided to give it a try; in this location I could go back many times but what if something in it really forced me to work on the file, I knew it was very hard but lots of the locations had this extreme shadow/ highlight ratios. I did ask one of the many japanese photogs and they smiled and said this is half of the fun. I guess working in post is something they cherish. I went for the toning not to obscure any problems but because I liked the old feel of it.
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I see what you are saying but tons of people were at that spot precisely because of the challenge, I normally would not have stopped but I decided to give it a try; in this location I could go back many times but what if something in it really forced me to work on the file, I knew it was very hard but lots of the locations had this extreme shadow/ highlight ratios. I did ask one of the many japanese photogs and they smiled and said this is half of the fun. I guess working in post is something they cherish. I went for the toning not to obscure any problems but because I liked the old feel of it.
Well, there are tons of people taking pictures in Yosemite Valley all the time. The place is a zoo. The "challenge" for 99% of them is to get a recognizable shot of a famous natural icon in the tiny window of time they have before their tour bus moves on. The challenge for the serious landscape photographer, on the other hand, is knowing when the light is good where you want to be.
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Yes is all about the light! Or how do you deal with it. My fellow photogs from Japan had stayed much longer than me and had probably tried every possible angle at various locations; some of the other serious photographers had some expensive gear and a less friendly attitude but I am sure they had also tried every single corner of the valley at different light situations. I don't know if a zoo is the term I would choose but to me it was great to photograph Yosemite with friendly japanese, IPhone young couples, annoyed photographers with several thousands worth of gear ot the wonderful old fellow who told about a trail I should go even with my digital camera, he preferred film.
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Yes is all about the light! Or how do you deal with it. My fellow photogs from Japan had stayed much longer than me and had probably tried every possible angle at various locations; some of the other serious photographers had some expensive gear and a less friendly attitude but I am sure they had also tried every single corner of the valley at different light situations. I don't know if a zoo is the term I would choose but to me it was great to photograph Yosemite with friendly japanese, IPhone young couples, annoyed photographers with several thousands worth of gear ot the wonderful old fellow who told about a trail I should go even with my digital camera, he preferred film.
It's a zoo in the sense that Yosemite Valley is almost always overrun by tourists. Much more so now than 25 years ago when I did most of my shooting there. But I'm not suggesting that most of them aren't decent, delightful people.
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I like the dark upper LHS. I thought you did it on purpose. ???
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I like the dark upper LHS. I thought you did it on purpose. ???
No, not really; even in this forum some photogs purposely add a vignette in post, in my experience most people in photographic community don't care for it. Somehow the quadtone emphasize the effect of my lens.