Elgol

[Dave (Isle of Skye)]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         .

[Michael West]

the local contrast in the foreground is somewhat distracting to my eye.

[francois]

I like it very much but my eyes tend to stay on the foreground and ignore the rest of the image. The sky is superb…

[RSL]

Very nice, Dave. Yeah, the foreground could stand a bit of toning down I think, and I wish the hand of man visible in the upper right were more visible. But it's pretty stunning. Here in the States it'd be almost impossible to get that kind of sky without one or two obvious contrails in it.

[Rob C]

Temptation might have been to show more sky and less foreground. But who knows what the sky above was like?

As it is, the sky is great - greater than the two other main elements, IMO. Water and foreground might still work well if more separation is made between the two, with the high contrast reserved for the water.

Rob C

[Harald L]

Sky and Mountains are superb. The water looks somewhat like concrete, perhaps a little bit overdone.

[Riaan van Wyk]

Hello Dave. Like Francois, my eye also gets stuck on the foreground, I feel it dominates the frame.   

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Sorry, Dave, too crunchy :-(

[Dave (Isle of Skye)]

Sorry, Dave, too crunchy :-(

No problem - I am trying a few ideas for creating high contrast Black and White's, so it's a bit of an on-giong experiment really, so yes I am sure you are right and I got a bit too carried away. I had also just watched this Sebastião Salgado video and think I was taken by his 'over crunchy' style and was subconciously trying to mimic it. Which I suppose if that is true, suggests that watching what others do before trying to do what you do, is not always a good idea.

Back to the RAWs for another go then and no harm done I think.

Thanks everyone, always much appreciated  

Dave

[Dave (Isle of Skye)]

Here is a less 'crunchy' version. 

Dave

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

And another example where a second, slower exposure would have removed that excess crunchiness from the sea surface, thus further concentrate the attention on the foreground and sky.

[Chairman Bill]

I agree with Slobodan - the sea just doesn't have a water-like quality to it. Other than that, it's quite nice, & of course you've photoshopped out the low cloud & rain very well indeed 

[churly]

When I first viewed B&W Sunset my first thought was 'where is Slobodan's crunchyometer.    Both of these are a bit crunch for my taste but this from one who has produced more than my share of crunchy images.

[Dave (Isle of Skye)]

Ok everyone, I get the message, crunchy is out.

I will take it on the chin and eat my own words (again  ) as previously stated in another one of my crunchy image related threads and dig out the old Singh-Ray vari-ND and go mad with it, as begrudgingly I have to admit that you are all probably right and I have been over tightening the pixels on the last couple of posts.

Dave