Wednesday Landscapes, 12 September 2018

[Leslie Reid]

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.

 

The same geese as last week, but a different frame and a totally different treatment of the scene (low clarity, high contrast, and a blue shift to the white balance, among other things). What started this exploration was curiosity about how small the geese could get and still dominate the image.

[JDMvW]

Early Morning

in the Black Bottom of the Ohio River

[Glenn McCreery]

 

"What started this exploration was curiosity about how small the geese could get and still dominate the image."

 

Leslie - you got me thinking about how small figures could get and still dominate an image. Here is a photo of two far away people walking on a beach in fog. I decreased the tonal contrast of everything except the two figures, converted to black and white and then added a green filter, which further reduced the contrast. The two figures are clearly the center of attraction. It helps that diagonal lines and the horizon converge near the two figures and that the two figures are near the center of the image.

 

A quick and easy technique that I have been using lately to see the effect of color filters on images converted to black and white using NIK Silver Efex is to click on the red filter to start, choose a high value for the effect (I use about 70%), and then slide the "Hue" slider up and down over the complete range of hues. Sometimes the difference between, for example, light green and medium green is quite noticeable.

Edited September 12, 2018 by Glenn McCreery

[Vincent Peri]

...What started this exploration was curiosity about how small the geese could get and still dominate the image.

[ATTACH=full]1262205[/ATTACH]

 

Hmm... goose-stepping

geese...

http://bayouline.com/o2.gif

[Glenn McCreery]

 

If I reduce the height of the two figures by a factor of two and place them further down the beach (after cloning them out in their initial position), they recede to the point that they are still clearly visible, but perhaps, no longer dominate the image?

Edited September 12, 2018 by Glenn McCreery

[Sandy Vongries]

The shots are effective and evocative, but somehow the figures seem too sharply defined for the scene / weather. Very interesting and well executed though.

[Glenn McCreery]

I agree that the two figures are too well defined, especially in the second image, and probably because I intentionally made them much blacker than anything else in the image. They are not sharpened any more than the rest of the scene, the higher contrast between the figures and the background makes them seem sharper, and thus more noticeable, which was the intent of my experiment. The more realistically gray I make the two figures, the more dreary the photo appears, so I will stick with unrealistic. Edited September 12, 2018 by Glenn McCreery

[Glenn McCreery]

Interestingly, although the two figures appear sharper than the surroundings in the second image, they are actually less sharp (by a factor of two) than the background! The appearance of sharpness here is due solely to the high contrast. Here is a zoomed in crop where you can compare the dimensions of the jaggies on the rock with those on the two figures in the original second image (before posting at 1,000 pixel width).

Edited September 12, 2018 by Glenn McCreery

[mpressionz]

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.

 

The same geese as last week, but a different frame and a totally different treatment of the scene (low clarity, high contrast, and a blue shift to the white balance, among other things). What started this exploration was curiosity about how small the geese could get and still dominate the image.

[ATTACH=full]1262205[/ATTACH]

The geese are LARGE in this clean, soft image with its icy cool hue. Like again.

[otislynch]

Judean desert landscape in historical perspective

 

[sergio_ortega7]

Double Arch, Arches N.P., Utah. (Canham DLC, Schneider 90mm f/8 Super Angulon, Velvia)

 

[mikehegarty01]

This is the Smoky Mountain National Park and I believe it is the Cumberland Gap. This image was taken just as the sun first came up over the mountains. One minute before I shot this it was almost completely dark.

[bertliang]

M4, 90mm Elmar, Double X at EI800, Xtol/Rodinal. Miami, FL.

by bc50099

[mpressionz]

Canon 40D 17-40mm ISO 200 1/2500 f4 From Ontario 2010

[kmac]

Two frame stitch from archive

 

[blurrist]

[Deborah Vallette]

[michaellinder]

In NE Georgia

[michaellinder]

More on point with Leslie's image; shot in Montauk, NY

[Greg M]

Opening to the Golden Gate, with Leica MP-240 and 21mm f3.4 Super Elmar.

 

[Greg M]

Awesome arches shot Sergio. I've love to see how you had to adjust the movements to get everything so well lined up and that depth of field nailed.

[scott_eaton5]

[arthur_mcculloch2]

kmac, I've posted this question on another site: where do you get these beautiful landscapes from? They remind me of the Wolgan Valley, or back of Broke. They are good. Would love to know. Regards, Arthur (apiarist1)

[arthur_mcculloch2]

Greg M, where was that shot taken? It;s good. Reminds me of the Canadian west coast. Regards, Arthur (apiarist1)

[kmac]

kmac, I've posted this question on another site: where do you get these beautiful landscapes from? They remind me of the Wolgan Valley, or back of Broke. They are good. Would love to know. Regards, Arthur (apiarist1)

 

The Capertee valley, a little further north than Wolgan valley. Others from the Megalong valley in the Blue Mountains. The B&W landscape scene in this thread is in Queensland

[arthur_mcculloch2]

Yes. You are blessed with great land. You get into the Megalong? It has been years for me, actually decades, as a teenager going down from Govett's leap, and then Perry's lookdown, into Blue Gums. I think it was burnt out. Not Megalong. Never got there. And now I'm too old to even contemplate. Thank you kmac, your shots are good, and evoke a landscape lost in time for me. Thank you. Regards, Arthur (apiarist1)

[sergio_ortega7]

Awesome arches shot Sergio. I've love to see how you had to adjust the movements to get everything so well lined up and that depth of field nailed.

 

Greg, Thanks. Just front tilt and stopping down the 90 SA to around f/22 provides good focus from foreground to infinity with that much working distance.

[Carl Stone]

More "desert landscape in historical perspective".

 

[Dieter Schaefer]

[Greg M]

Greg M, where was that shot taken? It;s good. Reminds me of the Canadian west coast. Regards, Arthur (apiarist1)

 

There’s a nature walk in San Francisco, from the Cliff House restaurant at Point Lobos, by the ruins of the Sutros Baths and through the Golden Gate towards the bridge.

[Carl Stone]

Lost Dutchman State Park

Flatiron, on a mid-September morning

[Greg M]

Scott, beautiful shot, and being able to retain all that detail in the sky just makes it for me. I see way too many images like this with blown sky/cloud detail and my eyes just cannot avoid being drawn to that over whatever the other subject matter in the scene is, no matter how good it might be.