Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Landscape & Nature Photography => Topic started by: Chris Calohan on July 18, 2013, 01:57:54 pm

Title: Lighthouse at Point Sur, Big Sur, CA
Post by: Chris Calohan on July 18, 2013, 01:57:54 pm
(http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2884/9316475626_e2ecec55b6_o.jpg)
Title: Re: Lighthouse at Point Sur, Big Sur, CA
Post by: Rand47 on July 18, 2013, 08:42:18 pm
Interesting, and captures the remote sense of the place.  Nice atmospherics.  A fascinating place that I've yet to photograph in a satisfying fashion.  Well done.

Rand

Title: Re: Lighthouse at Point Sur, Big Sur, CA
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on July 18, 2013, 11:16:24 pm
Yes, very nice. And much more interesting than 99.99% of lighthouse pix.
Title: Re: Lighthouse at Point Sur, Big Sur, CA
Post by: francois on July 19, 2013, 03:15:58 am
I like it too, very nice fog layer adds something special to this photo.
Title: Re: Lighthouse at Point Sur, Big Sur, CA
Post by: Paulo Bizarro on July 19, 2013, 05:39:52 am
Nice floating sensation.
Title: Re: Lighthouse at Point Sur, Big Sur, CA
Post by: Chris Calohan on July 19, 2013, 07:21:45 am
When I first saw the buildings, it indeed looked as if they were floating way above the rest of the world. However, by the time I could get to a decent shooting position, much of the fog had already dissipated. Still though, what was left made a shot interesting enough to brave the roadside brambles and whatever else might have lurked in the brush. Thanks for the nice words said toward this image.
Title: Re: Lighthouse at Point Sur, Big Sur, CA
Post by: sdwilsonsct on July 19, 2013, 08:35:46 am
Really nice, Chris. Two suggestions (ignore to taste):
How about cropping off the field?
I see a slight gray fringe around the buildings. This mirrors my own difficulties making local adjustments in these kinds of scenes.
Title: Re: Lighthouse at Point Sur, Big Sur, CA
Post by: Chris Calohan on July 19, 2013, 10:48:47 am
Really nice, Chris. Two suggestions (ignore to taste):
How about cropping off the field?
I see a slight gray fringe around the buildings. This mirrors my own difficulties making local adjustments in these kinds of scenes.

I have given the crop some thought but wonder if it doesn't give scale to the mass of the rocky crag (I would love other opinions here!). The gray haloing is jpeg compression as the print shows no abnormal light behaviors there. I made several copies of the raw file and adjusted each for the fog and details within then blended them all together. I will look again and see if I picked up some jpeg artifacts in the scaling.
Title: Re: Lighthouse at Point Sur, Big Sur, CA
Post by: louoates on July 19, 2013, 11:12:11 am
Warning: Habitual cropper comment

Cropping about half the bottom field really improves the dynamics. Rather than have about half the visual importance in the field the interest shifts immediately to the lighthouse area. I'd feel the same if there was anything of interest in the field. I love how that crop would add drama while still having the field set the place. The other benefit of the crop is to lend more importance to the small sea area on the right. We then see the immediate relationship between the sea and the lighthouse without the large, dark foreground stealing so much attention.
Title: Re: Lighthouse at Point Sur, Big Sur, CA
Post by: Chris Calohan on July 19, 2013, 12:04:36 pm
Hmmmmmm....it's a tossup for me but I do see the merit of your suggestion. As to the graying suggested earlier, I do believe you are right and I was wrong as per jpeg compression...I did a bit of a fix on that as well as Louoate's crop suggestion.

(http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5480/9319831753_b8c901b511_o.jpg)
Title: Re: Lighthouse at Point Sur, Big Sur, CA
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on July 19, 2013, 02:12:42 pm
I have to agree that the new version is a big improvement. I'll accept the cropping and the re-PP-ing.
Title: Re: Lighthouse at Point Sur, Big Sur, CA
Post by: AFairley on July 19, 2013, 02:44:30 pm
I agree with Eric on the PP-ing, but I like the original crop better, it seems more "anchored" to me.  On the other hand, I don't like the foreground portion of the field itself, I find the dark clumps (plants?, hard to tell at the reduced size) distracting.  Not sure what the solution is.... 
Title: Re: Lighthouse at Point Sur, Big Sur, CA
Post by: sdwilsonsct on July 19, 2013, 03:25:54 pm
...I don't like the foreground portion of the field itself, I find the dark clumps (plants?, hard to tell at the reduced size) distracting.  Not sure what the solution is.... 

Now that you've started cropping, take off a little on the left so that the floating island is anchored only to the ocean on the right. IMHO.
Title: Re: Lighthouse at Point Sur, Big Sur, CA
Post by: Chris Calohan on July 19, 2013, 10:01:41 pm
I went a little further than that...and I think this version really rocks!

(http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5495/9325336182_023910f4c5_o.jpg)
Title: Re: Lighthouse at Point Sur, Big Sur, CA
Post by: davidh202 on July 19, 2013, 11:12:20 pm
 I was going to suggest a crop of the bottom and what Lou said when I saw this yesterday. I think you have done better with this now, but maybe a little too much off the bottom  :-\
Title: Re: Lighthouse at Point Sur, Big Sur, CA
Post by: Rand47 on July 28, 2013, 04:00:12 pm
Sent you a PM with some ideas.

Rand
Title: Re: Lighthouse at Point Sur, Big Sur, CA
Post by: Rand47 on July 28, 2013, 07:56:53 pm
With Chris' permission I'm posting my suggestions originally sent to him in PM.  I really love his image of Pt. Sur Light - but felt that removing the foreground, to get a more pleasing compositional emphasis on the facility, removed the reality of the "sense of place" one gets when there.  The remoteness of the light facilities on top of that huge rock, jutting out from the coast on its peninsula is an important part of the image, IMO.  To wit, I offered the following:

"What if you left the foreground in, but brought the tone of it down with a gradient so that it leads the eye out to the rock/fog/facility?  I played with it and think that if you increased the exposure in the gradient by about 2/3 stop, brought the highlights down to zero, shadows to zero, and then negative clarity to the max, and sharpness down until it looks 'foggy' in the gradient to tie the foreground into your fog/clouds?  I also would reduce the saturation in the gradient a bit, in order to keep the main color-focal-point at the top of the rock.  I 'finished' by taking it into CS6 and doing a content-aware-scale of the foreground to compress it, yet leave it with a sense of 'out-there-ness.'  

Hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of doing an example of what I'm talking about:

Your original post:

(http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2884/9316475626_e2ecec55b6_o.jpg)

Your final crop in the post:

(http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5495/9325336182_023910f4c5_o.jpg)

And my adjustments to (hopefully) keep the best of both worlds:

(http://rsadams.smugmug.com/Other/Fine-Art-Photos/i-Q9KmsMx/0/X3/9316475626_e2ecec55b6_o-Edit-X3.jpg)

. . . end of quote from PM."

Chris liked it.  I think this is a perfect-case image for effective use of content aware scale.

Rand