mv

[Jeremy Roussak]

Comments?

Jeremy

[John R Smith]

Jeremy

Very solid colours, and what a landscape. All technically very good - focus, exposure, lovely sky.

The strength of the picture seems to me to be a sort of visual dialogue between the tree (foreground left) and the butte (?) in the middle distance. But my eye keeps being drawn to and is "falling out" of the LH side of the frame  - there is just a little too much sky and space here. I would suggest just a teensy crop to the LH edge - just teensy, mind you, don't lose the shape of the tree.

I do like it.

John

[amolitor]

I see what John's talking about (damn it, I should know better than to read other critiques first) and would like to up the ante a little. I find the low humped shape of the main cloud stretching across the frame kind of wants to dump my eye out of frame either way. It's like my eye balances, and then falls off, one way or the other.

Possibly a very very mild vignette, below the threshold of "visible vignette" but still present would help me out here.

I also think this is an image damaged by the smallness of the format. The two fluffy clouds below the top of the mesa in the center of the frame look, at first glance, like you did some ugly smudge thing in photoshop. Of course you did NOT, and I think at a decent print size that would be obvious, and these clouds would actually constitute a very visual interesting place for the eye to rest.

[Rob C]

Is it half-a-pair of basic gloves?

Rob C

[Tony Jay]

Really nice shot.
Delicate light along with the cloud cover really make this image.

Regards

Tony Jay

[popnfresh]

It's a well exposed photograph, but that's about all it has going for it. The high midday sun is unappealing. A scene like this begs to be shot either around dawn or near sunset. The foreground contributes nothing to the composition. The tree in the left foreground is too close in value to the background to provide adequate separation. And there's too much empty dirt down in front. The sky has clouds in it, but not very interesting ones. Basically it looks like you just drove through Monument Valley at a random time of day, pulled over and took a quick snapshot and kept going. With a little advance planning and better seeing you might have captured something special. As it is, I can find better pictures of the valley on postcards at the visitor's center for $1.50.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... Basically it looks like you just drove through Monument Valley at a random time of day, pulled over and took a quick snapshot and kept going...

That is what most likely happened, as anyone traveling with a non-photographic group can confirm (be it friends, family or tour). Oftentimes, you just do not have the luxury of choice, and you just have a few minutes, possibly hours, in the most inconvenient (for photographers) time of the day, to get the shot. And what you do get might well be below the gift-shop standard, but it is yours at least.

The only part I might agree with your criticism, Pop, is about the tree not being separated enough from the background. A slight change in camera's elevation or a few steps closer to it might have helped.

[RSL]

Jeremy, my problem is with the color. I've never seen a pinon that color, not even in late evening low sun.

[popnfresh]

Shooting in MV can be a daunting proposition. To really do it right and shoot from the best vantage points you need to get off the beaten path, and that involves buying a photography permit from the Navaho Nation. They don't let you wander around with your camera without one. Even with a permit there are a lot of off limit areas. It takes planning and a couple hundred bucks worth of paperwork.

[amolitor]

It's worth noting that postcards often have some truly outstanding work on them, albeit usually in a particular style. I disagree about popnfresh's take on the foreground, I think the expanse of earth is a necessary balancing element. The sun overhead is problematic, but well handled it can give a good sense of the desert/heat, and I think it's pretty good, here.

Basically, though, I think this is an image of the interesting (to me, at any rate) clouds below the tops of the mesas. The rest is just context, and as such it's pretty well handled. It might not be genius, but it's appealing.

[Jeremy Roussak]

Genius I leave to real photographers; I'm a reasonably happy snapper.

It was taken at about 0930, so while the light might not be ideal, it wasn't midday (for that, I've some shots of Coalmine Canyon, dammit). I'd stayed at The View the previous night (a place I strongly recommend, by the way) and had booked an early morning trip but the weather was dreadful and the forecast worse so I cancelled it. This was taken on the drive before we left to head for Sedona. Slobodan is right: I had a schedule to keep and a wife who had been pretty tolerant over the previous week but was beginning to get tetchy.

I agree with amolitor (Andy?) in that what I thought of as the point of the image was the fluffy band in the middle. I already had a slight post-crop vignette applied; increasing it just makes it intrusive. It would have been nice to have achieved better separation between the tree and the background, though.

Russ, I haven't fiddled with the colour at all. Rob, you are of course quite right. As Kurt Vonnegut wrote (about his mother, I think), "She always interpreted the phrase 'Gott mit uns' as a declaration that one had gloves".

Jeremy