What do you do when atmospheric conditions kill but there is no sky to speak of?

[Mjollnir]

Sigh.  Had a weekend a short time ago back in the area close to where I grew up, central coastal California, and while we were primarily busy with other things than photography, we did in fact have time to shoot and hike a bit for a review my wife was doing of a new camera-pack/backpack for it's manufacturer.

Quite often the atmospherics were just great, as was the color, but the skies, for all three days, were simply blank nothingness.  I've cropped this one all to hell, to minimize the effect of the sky, but am still displeased with it.  Also displeased with my impatience, since I left the Oly 45mm prime on and could have switch to the 40-150 for better framing.

What would you do w/this one?  I'm about to just write it off, but I want it to work.


Sunrise, Highway 198 by tanngrisnir3, on Flickr

Here are two others that work better than the first, but show the skies just like the first.  Snoozefestian.


Sunrise, Vineyard Drive, Paso Robles by tanngrisnir3, on Flickr


Sunrise, Highway 46, The Sisters by tanngrisnir3, on Flickr

[Rob C]

The first and third I find very simple and attractive; the middlel one I do not.

I perceive no reason why a sky should always contain a mess of cloud; it isn't like that in life, as you can plainly see.

Rob C

[sdwilsonsct]

I perceive no reason why a sky should always contain a mess of cloud; it isn't like that in life, as you can plainly see.

+1. Tranquil, real colours. Of course, you have to work a bit more on the foreground, as you have done.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade: turn it into negative space.

[Rob C]

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade: turn it into negative space.

?

What have you slipped into your lemonade, Slobodan?

Rob C

[Isaac]

"[Gustave] Le Gray innovated by successively printing parts of two negatives onto the same proof: a landscape and the sky of his choice, photographed elsewhere. ... The critics sang his praises..."

;-)

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... What have you slipped into your lemonade, Slobodan?

The sky, Rob, the sky. Turn the sky into negative space.

[l_d_allan]

What have you slipped into your lemonade, Slobodan?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_space

[Riaan van Wyk]

Just because we are sitting in mother nature's garden, camera in hand and frothing at the mouth to capture glorious skies does not mean she has to honour our presence with the same. Some days a diamond, some days a stone, as a popular song implies. Stuff happens.

Rather be gratefull that you had the fortune of seeing these scenes and was able to capture them and post them here for viewers to enjoy. Others are not so lucky.

I like the pics you posted Mjollnir, subtle colours are just as interesting ( for me) as in your face "wow" clouds.
 
 

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

The sky, Rob, the sky. Turn the sky into negative space.

Gosh! And I thought you were suggesting he replace the sky color with lemon yellow.
Hmmm. That might be interesting...

[Tonysx]

I find the first and 3rd images much more pleasing than the rather overdone 2nd one. As another poster has already pointed out - SKYs HAPPEN.

[Rob C]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_space

"Negative space, in art, is the space around and between the subject(s) of an image. Negative space may be most evident when the space around a subject, and not the subject itself, forms an interesting or artistically relevant shape, and such space is occasionally used to artistic effect as the "real" subject of an image. The use of negative space is a key element of artistic composition. The Japanese word "ma" is sometimes used for this concept..."


Thanks for the link: that exemplifies why I distrust curators and their dark doings, along with all of the other cerebral bullshit that has grown around the graphic arts.

Photography is friggin' simple: it works or it doesn't work. Attempting to catalogue and qualify, deconstruct etc. etc. and otherwise mess with something so basic is a falsehood, a conceit, nothing but a form of aesthetic masturbation, a display of faux mental superiority which leaves a normal person, with normal appetites, stone cold and unconvinced. Of course, if one might wish to play, then there's really no limit to the froth one can whip up; it's done all the time. Usually, however, it's obligatory to mention the word zen.

;-)

Rob C

[RSL]

I agree with Rob, and to answer the title's question: you come back another day. After all, this is landscape. It's not going away. It'll still be there when you're long gone.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Rob, that was a good example why one shouldn't trust everything they read on the Internet, and especially Wikipedia.

That was not the definition of negative space in photography, and not what I had in mind. What I did have in mind is much simpler: when confronted with a "featureless" sky, ie, no spectacular-looking clouds, one might want to experiment and include more, not less of it. In the OP case, such a sky at least had nice colors. By turning the camera upright (in absence of a wider lens), and placing the horizon in the lower third or even fifth of the composition, one would get a nicely colored, "empty" sky (thus "negative" space), which would, paradoxically, focus the attention to the lower parts of the image. If you want photographic simplicity, you can hardly beat that.

[Peter McLennan]

Oh, boy.  Is this ever gonna get me in trouble:

Sky replacement.

[Rob C]

Oh, boy.  Is this ever gonna get me in trouble:

Sky replacement.

Funny thing; I've only done that once in my life, and in b/white. It worked quite well, but the fact is that I did it to see if I could. I could, and then for years - literally - I forgot how to do it until recently when a neighbour on holiday spent the time to come show me. I'm hoping that next time he comes over he'll show me how to work a little gadget that I bought that's supposed to allow me to copy my CDs to mp3 for the car. Life in the fast lane!

However, I may not bother. I find I can't play music and hear the direction indicators clicking at the same time. They never self-cancel unless doing S bends and I simply don't want to risk collisions because I forgot to centralise the stalk. More progress. Never had such problems with old model cars: everything worked. Even my ears.

Rob C

[Shakyphoto (Slim)]

I've griped about the sky not cooperating many times.   Especially frustrating during vacation time or when you have spent thousands of dollars to get to the location you are shooting from.  I've blogged about this a few times as well.

As for the shots.  The third shot fore ground is awesome.  I agree the sky is lacking.  Would cropping the sky out so only 1/3 of the image is an orange sky work better?  You currently have it cropped so that is 50/50.  Too much attention is being drawn to the sky.

[Mjollnir]

I've griped about the sky not cooperating many times.   Especially frustrating during vacation time or when you have spent thousands of dollars to get to the location you are shooting from.  I've blogged about this a few times as well.

As for the shots.  The third shot fore ground is awesome.  I agree the sky is lacking.  Would cropping the sky out so only 1/3 of the image is an orange sky work better?  You currently have it cropped so that is 50/50.  Too much attention is being drawn to the sky.

Yep, exactly that.  Although living in Los Angeles gives me great opportunity to get out to Big Sur, the Mojave, Yosemite, the Owens Valley, SEKI, Death Valley, etc....  it's not like it's possible to do every weekend and there is the PIA factor of doing trips a number of times, coming up empty.  But I won't complain, because there is no end to the one-off trips that turned out spectacularly, esp in the eastern Sierra.

For cropping, I went by the darkest line of the hills, frame right, to get the thirds effect, but I'll try taking out some of the sky.