Wednesday Landscapes, 27 September 2017

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.

 

Another minimalist landscape here. This is my favorite part of our local coastal dune field, from a couple of months ago. There’s not a lot of post-processing here, and all was done in Lightroom—I lightened the shadows and highlights, increased contrast a lot, vibrance a little, and—uncharacteristically—reduced clarity a fair bit, then restored it on the dune crests with a strongly feathered adjustment brush. The reasoning for those last two moves was to play up the softness of the light sand. What was happening here is that the morning wind had picked up, and what it picked up was the finer, light-colored sand in the hollows; pretty much everything light-colored here was in motion. The darker sand on the dune crests is an armor layer of coarser particles, which weren’t moving yet (and which is why I was comfortable taking out the camera for this photo). The camera went back under my coat after the photo, and I got the heck out of there before it really started to blow.

 

Singing-Sand Mountain, a sand dune in DunHaung, Western China.

In keeping with the dunes theme, this one is from the Great Sand Dunes National Park in southern Colorado. I recently posted it in a sunset thread in No Words. It was taken with my first Olympus point-and-shoot so, other than converting to black and white, my main post work had to do with eliminating edge outlines along the skyline. Don't remember what else I did, because it was taken over ten years ago, but I imagine some levels and curves adjustments. Back story is that I had just come from Colorado Springs and was pretty sure I'd broken my ankle there, having slipped on a gravely path. Was heading to Santa Fe and figured I'd see a doctor there. So, though I was in pain and my ankle was swollen to about twice its size, I couldn't resist this great sunset on the road. Immediately after this, I checked into my lodge and iced up!

 

This one was taken about 3/4 of the way up the face of Gros Morne, probably about 700 metres above sea level. It is a very challenging trail, a 16 kilometre loop. I first climbed it 16 years ago with a Nikon F5 and finally got to revisit it last month with a D800E and Sigma 35mm attached. The trail takes you up a steep, treacherous rock slide and every 50 metres, or so, the view over your shoulder seems to take on another dimension. The area is steeped in geological history and significance. The summit is just over 800 metres above sea level and is a plateau of broken rock and shale.

The light was never favourable during the climb. I tried to de-haze the shot somewhat in PS and sharpened (or over-sharpened) the background a bit. It was originally exposed to protect the cloud highlights so had to have the foreground shadows lightened a bit as well.

 

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From a recent trip to British Columbia/Alberta, this should be Lake Herbert near the Icefields Parkway.

Not much challenge in making this image to be honest! Highlight recovery in post processing to get the clouds back in shape was the worst this photo threw at me.

After seeing how badly the sharpening really looked on here, I went back in to 'edit' the post. I deleted the shot, reworked the text, and then uploaded a revised version.

Of course, that was all too easy. When I tried to repost I was informed I had timed-out.

 

Here is the other. Instead of sharpening the background individually I chose a milder approach and just used PS sharpening mask for the whole image.

 

It was a hazy day and very hot. The sun remained obscured throughout but I was forced to shoot toward it so the colours are somewhat muted especially in the background.

 

Edited September 27, 2017 by Gup

Alone In The Fog

 

It was before the sun was fully up, in the fog, so required a long shutter (1/2") and a tripod. I also had to work a bit for the perspective, getting pretty low for the angle I had in mind, which was a juxtaposition of the purplish, weedy seed pod in the foreground with the ghostly, almost invisible tree far off in the background fog. I like the result, though, so I decided it was worth getting up before dawn to drive and then hike out into the marsh. Nikon D7000, 50mm prime lens @ f/22, 1/2", ISO-100.

 

Old cabin and thistles in wheat field. Gup had me inspecting the first version that I was about to post and, sure enough, it was over-sharpened when reduced to 1,000 pixels wide. so I backed off the sharpening. Edited September 27, 2017 by Glenn McCreery

Instead of sharpening the background individually I chose a milder approach and just used PS sharpening mask for the whole image.

I backed off the sharpening

Seems like it was a bad day for initial sharpenings--I realized too late that I had forgotten to sharpen before posting, so mine is an unsharpened version. It turns out that sharpening would have made some difference but not a lot, since I'd already used contrasting clarities and I would have sharpened only a small part of the image anyway. I like the sharpening on both of your final images here--it's definitely a skill I'm going to have to work on more.

The closest thing I have to "dunes" is this shot I took in 1972 in North Dakota with a 2 1/4 twin lens (Yashicamat).

Night On The Seine River, Near Vernon, France

 

Night On The Seine - Vernon by David Stephens, on Flickr

From Montauk, Long Island, NY, NY . . .Used Canon 6D and Tamron 15-300 mm at 32 mm; shot at 65536/548864, f9.9, ISO 200 in mid-afternoon under cloudy conditions.

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Cley NWT Nature Reserve.

Just liked the sky.

 

No wonder you liked the sky,Tony. It humbles everything below.

At Chico Hot Springs Montana this morning

Arches National Park, UT