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Wednesday Landscapes, 14 June 2017


Leslie Reid

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You are invited to upload one or more of your landscape photos and, if you’d like, to accompany your image with some commentary: challenges you faced in making the image? your intent for the image? settings? post-processing decisions? why you did what you did? the place and time? or an aspect you’d like feedback on? And please feel free to ask questions of others who have posted images or to join the discussion. If you don’t feel like using words, that’s OK too—unaccompanied images (or unaccompanied words, for that matter) are also very much welcomed. As for the technicalities, the usual forum guidelines apply: files < 1 MB; image size <1000 px maximum dimension.

 

This photo is from last October, in the Coast Range of northwest California. The intent here was to show off the color of the oaks against the hazy blue of the opposite ridge, while excluding the hazy white sky and finding a graceful shape in a foreground tree. I had to search for quite awhile to find a vantage from which that all was possible. There’s not a lot of processing on this one—slight increase in contrast, increased white point, reduced highlights, slight increase in saturation of yellows, reds, and oranges, and a decrease (!) in saturation of the blues--I didn't touch the vibrance or overall saturation, since the small contrast increase and stretching of the light tones had already brought out the color.

 

D01-_MG_3517.thumb.jpg.fd6d8d52dd943791e3dd6634712f425e.jpg

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I took this one yesterday and already have an order for a large print.

 

It's taken with a 50+mp Canon 5DS-R and the EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II, hand held at 222mm, at ISO 100. I actually had the EF 1.4x TC-III attached because I might see some birds or wildlife in the rural area where it was taken. I was on a volunteer work crew, on a project on former farm land, now raw land. It's at the beginning of the Great Plain and, of course, this is looking back at the Rocky Mountains. I had my 14mm and 24-105mm in a backpack and used them later for some other views, but there were power lines that made those images less impactful (in fact, I need to remove one power line in this image, before printing). I zoomed in to get under most of the power lines, but that still left plenty of mountains and still include most of the rays. I like the 2:1 crop and use that a lot, but I took this shot with that in mind, once again, because of the power lines. Processed in DxO Optics Pro 11.4, with very minimal adjustments. Before printing, I will remove that power line and run it through DxO's PRIME noise reduction software. Client wants 48"x24" and I've got enough pixels for that.

 

34453148514_6194abd3be_b.jpgGod Rays On The Rockies by David Stephens, on Flickr

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737004500_garapatabw3.thumb.jpg.577e0018aaefbfc5ed5b990378041157.jpg

 

Big Sur coast. The photo was taken last November at Garapata State Park, which is north of the town of Big Sur and is still accessible. The highway to the south of Big Sur is now closed due to landslides, and will probably remain closed for up to a year. For information on the latest slide see: Landslide buries California's scenic highway in Big Sur - CNN.com . The first photo of the slide at the start of the video is quite impressive!

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Congrats on the quick sale, David. A very dramatic scene, for sure.

 

Thanks Gup. The quick sale was helped along by some dramatic, related circumstances. The lady I was working with had just received a text that a good friend of hers was taken off life support within the last hour. She didn't say anything at the time, but everyone pulled out their phones and took pix of the sunbeams. I pulled out my big rig, took this picture, and sent her the resulting picture first thing this morning, since she was our leader. It made her cry and she wants it as a gift for the brother of the young man taken off life support, since he's also a close friend and would really appreciate the story and related image.

 

She was happy with her iPhone image, but this blew her away.

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[ATTACH=full]1192609[/ATTACH]

 

Big Sur coast. The photo was taken last November at Garapata State Park, which is north of the town of Big Sur and is still accessible. The highway to the south of Big Sur is now closed due to landslides, and will probably remain closed for up to a year. For information on the latest slide see: Landslide buries California's scenic highway in Big Sur - CNN.com . The first photo of the slide at the start of the video is quite impressive!

 

Glenn, I feel so lucky to have finally realized a dream of driving the #1 highway last October, before the recent devastation. I am so ready to do it again right now!

 

I appreciate that you processed this one in B&W. It really helps to enhance the contrast from foreground to sky.

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