Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Landscape & Nature Photography => Topic started by: bretedge on October 30, 2013, 11:22:49 am
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This fall I made it a mission to photograph Castleton Tower (aka Castle Rock, Castle Tower) from several unique locations. It's one of the most popular desert towers for rock climbers to conquer and as such, we end up selling quite a few prints of it to those same climbers who visit our gallery. It's the whole "emotional connection" thing. Any way, I wanted to find some unconventional compositions of this popular location and this fall I think I succeeded with three different, unique perspectives, all of which utilize fall colors in the foreground. This is probably my favorite of the batch although I really enjoy another one that has some colorful cottonwoods at the bottom of the frame.
Thanks for having a look and leaving a comment.
Techs: Canon 5D MKII, 24-105mm lens, Induro CT213 tripod, Acratech ballhead, handheld Singh-Ray 3 stop soft GND, processed on Lightroom 4 while drinking a delicious huckleberry wheat beer from Montana
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The fundamentals. Two-thirds of your photograph consist of a nominally interesting band of medium dark green trees/hills mostly in shade in the middle band, with a very narrow slightly lit band of orange between the lower area of orange and red shrubs again in shade. I would ask if two-thirds of your picture plane is taken up with this - why? Is this large area interesting? Does this fairly bland area work for or against the beautiful towers in so far in the distant background? (additionally, the tops of the towers and the plateau to right are even with the top of the darker plateau in background - allowing them to die into the bg) Yes, it is an unconventional view, but I would say it's definitely not successful.
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The test of whether or not it is " successful" is if the public starts to buy it. That is where the rubber meets the road-not how much green is in the image.
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The fundamentals. Two-thirds of your photograph consist of a nominally interesting band of medium dark green trees/hills mostly in shade in the middle band, with a very narrow slightly lit band of orange between the lower area of orange and red shrubs again in shade. I would ask if two-thirds of your picture plane is taken up with this - why? Is this large area interesting? Does this fairly bland area work for or against the beautiful towers in so far in the distant background? (additionally, the tops of the towers and the plateau to right are even with the top of the darker plateau in background - allowing them to die into the bg) Yes, it is an unconventional view, but I would say it's definitely not successful.
1. It succeeds, I'd say. The subject is the naturalistic view of the long scene, not Castleton Tower hamming it up.
2. This kind of informed negative criticism is valuable. I see a lot of happy tosh passing for critiques of frankly hackneyed treatments.
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I like the perspective Bret. Looks like it was taken from up on the Loop Road.
Later,
Johnny
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For me the aspect ratio of the image is too longish.
I'd wish to have a bit more way to the left and right.
Also the light in the foreground is too dull to make it really work.
I'd try to get there in better light and with a little wider angle lens or stitch some.
The point of view looks very good to me, but I think the concept needs some more love to make it really pop.
Cheers
~Chris
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Bret, I might light to see how a little of the lightening of the foreground would look. But it is obviously a beautiful shot.
Matt
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I like the "unconventional" view.
I agree with Christoph. I opened up the shadows a little, and applied some field blur (4 pix) in CS6 to the bottom third. This tends to make your eye travel upward to the sharper area of the castle and cliffs at the top, while still retaining that lovely Fall color at the bottom. ;-)
David