Amboseli Dawn Light

[Ed Blagden]

C&C much appreciated

[Rob C]

Good grief! There's even less snow up there now than ever!

What global warming indeed. Is it too late?

Rob C

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Well seen.

I rarely, if ever, adopt the Alain Briot approach, but this might be an instance where I would agree: clone out the bare tree on the left and content-aware move the main tree slightly to the right.

[Ed Blagden]

Well seen.

I rarely, if ever, adopt the Alain Briot approach, but this might be an instance where I would agree: clone out the bare tree on the left and content-aware move the main tree slightly to the right.

Thanks Slobodan,

I have a confession: I don't actually posses a copy of Photoshop.  I got into digital photography in 2007 (I was a slides guy before then) and since then I have only used Lightroom plus various plugins.  When I looked at that shot for the first time I actually thought the same as you about the main tree, but my thought process was "maybe I should have shot the photo from a different angle".  I kind of like the bare tree.  The thought of actually moving things around after taking the shot never even crossed my mind.  I'm not above cloning out power lines and suchlike, and maybe a bit of cropping, but actually moving things.... no.  It isn't an ethics thing, it's just that I don't do it.  Must be my slides heritage.  I'm not saying I'm right and you are wrong, it's just a different approach.

Good grief! There's even less snow up there now than ever!

What global warming indeed. Is it too late?

Rob C

The shot was taken in October, right at the end of the long dry season which goes from May to November, so snow cover is at its minimum, and you are down to bare glacier with no seasonal snow.  It is certainly true that average snow cover has diminished since I first visited the mountain in 1997, but over the same period global temperatures have flatlined - no net warming since 1998.  The reason for the diminishing average snow cover is much more mundane: lower precipitation caused by localised deforestation, which in turn is caused by a growing population using wood to make charcoal for cooking, and the attendant livestock (mainly goats) which eat what is left of the vegetation, including tree saplings.  The East African environment as a whole is suffering from this, and we would be a lot better off if we burned less charcoal and more fossil fuels, and ate more commercially farmed meat.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

If it were my shot, I'd be happy with it as it is. But if Slobodan lived right next door, I'd be tempted to invite him over to play with it a bit as he suggested.
That would be worth at least one beer I'm thinking.

[RSL]

It would be nice if the tree weren't in the middle of the frame, but an even better conversion would be to B&W it with Silver Efex Pro and high structure. I'm a bit reluctant to bogart Ed's thread with an example, but I've tried it, and it's at least a one beer conversion.

[Ed Blagden]

It would be nice if the tree weren't in the middle of the frame, but an even better conversion would be to B&W it with Silver Efex Pro and high structure. I'm a bit reluctant to bogart Ed's thread with an example, but I've tried it, and it's at least a one beer conversion.

Russ I have never heard the verb "to bogart" but please go ahead - I have no objection to other people doing things to my images (provided it is understood that it remains my image) and would be intrigued to see what you came up with. 

Unfortunately as we are on opposite sides of the world a beer will be out of the question  . 

[RSL]

Okay, Ed. Normally I wouldn't hesitate, but I really like the shot just as you shot it.

The verb "to Bogart" comes from some of the roles Humphrey played and refers to theft. My four sons used to use it all the time when they were teens, but it seems to have fallen out of favor now -- just as "selfie" will in the not too distant future.

Slobodan may not agree that B&W is an improvement, and I'd have a hard time on the other side of the argument. But I think I'm going to write another essay for www.russ-lewis.com -- on the advantages of B&W over color in photography. Color's wonderful in cases where the thing must be shown in all its reality, but the abstraction you achieve in B&W sometimes can convert a ho-hum color shot into something worthwhile. The picture I posted a while back of Joe Taranto's in Apalachicola is an example. In color it's just a tourist shot. In B&W it has an emotional impact that's simply not there in color. (And I'm not referring to the dust spot in the sky that I missed.) I should add that I'm not at all sure this is the case with your shot, because I think the original is very good, but the B&W is a different picture.

[Ed Blagden]

Russ,

Wow.  Wonderful.  I really do like that.  I did try a BW conversion some weeks ago but I couldn't pre-visualise what I might be aiming at and so abandoned the effort.

Now I can't decide which one I like better.  Actually, there is no reason why I have to decide... both are different and both have their own merits.  I like my colour version because of the way the colours transition from the almost harsh and vibrant colours at the bottom to the subtle pinks and oranges as you go up the mountain - the effect is a bit like a certain kind of oriental art.  Your BW version is quite different - makes the mountain look much more looming and huge, and somehow floating above the subtle greys of the lower slopes.  Your interpretation is successful in getting close to conveying the scale of the mountain and for that reason alone I love it.

Incidentally, from the Department of Interesting but Ultimately Useless Facts, Mount Kilimanjaro is the tallest freestanding mountain in the world.  From the base where I took the shot at 3,200', to the summit at 19,300' the vertical height is 16,100'.  That is big.  Really.  Big.  For comparison, the vertical from Everest Base Camp (17,520') to the summit (29,030') is 11,500'.  I don't have GPS on my camera but I know roughly where I took the shot, and the straight line distance from me to the summit is about 30 miles.  Just think about that.  It is like standing in Dover and looking at something in Dunkirk, France.  Or for any Americans without passports, think of standing in Times Square NYC and looking at something in East Brunswick NJ.  The thing is enormous and quite hard for the human brain to take in.  And it is very hard to take a photograph which even gets close to conveying just how damn big that thing is.

[RSL]

That's not really a useless fact, Ed. My youngest son climbed it several years back. He's climbed all the "fourteeners" in Colorado -- the mountains that are over 14,000 feet. Last year I was delighted when he decided he was finished climbing mountains.

[Rob C]

I read somewhere that Kili is but a remnant of what was once a huge, single volcano that broke up. In essence, it must be a concept as explosive as Santorini, but even larger.

I can remember driving away from Buffalo Lodge to Mombasa, that Kili seemed to be in the scene forever. I'm glad I saw the place, but wouldn't want to return to the continent.

Perhaps I'd enjoy another jaunt to the Bahamas were I to be working again, but apart from that, the thing about beaches fades with time, and one becomes more concerned about transporting sand into the car and then the house...

All in all, money no object, I think  that my ideas now would embrace a top-bracket cruise along the Canal du Midi to Toulouse, and then along the other one that continues (the name of which escapes me at the moment) on to Bordeaux. And back! Quite possibly, also a car tour of the most expensive hotels in France and Switzerland. Another idea would be a similar road trip of the Paradors in Spain.

For all these things, one needs not only time but pots of money, enough not to feel the pinch and ever weigh up value of pleasure for buck. And there one of the problems in life: one might know the size of the buck but not the length of the time, therefore a reasonable distribution is impossible. Perhaps just as well.

;-)

Rob C