Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Landscape & Nature Photography => Topic started by: churly on October 31, 2012, 06:15:48 pm
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Spring squall moving along the eastern part of the Absaroka Range, NW Wyoming.
Thanks for looking in.
(http://churly.zenfolio.com/img/s2/v60/p1235165918-4.jpg)
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I like it. A pleasing simplicity in composition, a limited pallette, all adds to the effect.
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One of the cases where color is not adding much. I would try b&w conversion or at least play with white balance.
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The focal weight in favour of the sky works well here, the subtle colours have appeal and i like the image as is...but i also wonder if there is a very dramatic mono in there? mono might not be your thing of course?
Nice shot like it.
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One of the cases where color is not adding much. I would try b&w conversion or at least play with white balance.
I think that a B&W would be better. While I like the composition and all the elements of the scene, I'm not too happy with some of the colors in the sky, especially around the light areas (see attached photo). A good conversion to B&W would eliminated that.
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I have to add to the consensus that this image might look considerably more dramatic and interesting as a B&W.
There does seem to be a lot of potential there.
Tony Jay
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Thanks to everyone for the comments.
I actually did a monochrome on this first and then went back to work on the color version. I have been feeling like I have been defaulting to monochrome on shots with subtle or difficult color so I wanted to post the color version to get some feedback. Here is the monochrome. I'm not sure that it is much more drammatic than the color version but that's about as far as I am comfortable pushing the conversion based on the limitations of the original exposure (or perhaps my skills). The mountains seem to pop a bit more on my screen as compared to the uploaded jpeg.
(http://churly.zenfolio.com/img/s11/v31/p1237367708-4.jpg)
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fwiw, I think the colour image is way better - there's a presence and liveliness to the light in the clouds which hasn't transferred to the monochrome conversion.
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In both versions, I find the clarity slider a bit overused, in both the mountain range and the sky. Also, there seems to be a lovely overlap in the hills in the foreground, and I would like to see more of it.
There is a kind of a disbalance in the composition, as I am not sure where the main emphasis is: clouds or the mountain. It is a kind of a Dutch landscape composition (i.e, the one where the horizon is in the bottom 1/5 of the image, instead of the more classical 1/3). But a Dutch foreground is usually flat, without such a dominant feature as the over-punched mountain, competing for attention.
If this is a full-frame version, then what I would do (if anybody cares, that is) is to make up my mind what is it that I want to emphasize. If the mountain, than I would crop the top 1/3 out, into a panorama. If clouds, then I would de-emphasize the mountain by reducing the clarity, and turn the sky a bit more dramatic.
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Isaac - Yes I agree.
Slobodan - Thanks for your detailed comments - they are appreciated. I am always disappointed by the rendering of complicated images at this scale. I posted the same image on a local site that has lightbox running and the difference between the crunchiness of the small image compared to a slightly larger one is remarkable. I guess what that really says is that if you are going to post an image at the Lula scale for critique, it should be processed for that scale (not just at the level of output sharpening). Of course one can always do an attachment that allows a larger image but unfortunately (or maybe not) the image is only available if you are logged in. With respect to the composition - I agree that there is competition. My thinking on pushing the contrast on the mountains is that they would then provide a starting point into the image that brings you to the clouds that are sort of 'encroaching on' the mountain. It seemed to work for some and not others.