The Melancholy of Nisqually

Your comments and suggestions are most welcomed.

Very nice. My only wish is that it were just a little brighter in the foreground.

David, it's certainly melancholic. The sky is wonderful, as usual. I find my eye drawn to it and then to the bright light and lastly the FG. It looks like you have captured the mood brilliantly. Would you want it on your wall?

What an amazing sky! It looks so close one could reach up and touch it. The sky-to-land ratio is well chosen. Three points about the composition seem to me particularly effective. One is the parallel bands leading out to the vanishing point: The treeline, reflection of the treeline, reflected light on the water, dark landmass, and then -- very nicely -- that lighter patch of sand that parallels the bright band in the water. Second is of course the bright sky at the horizon, the key to the whole picture and the spot from which the bands emerge. Third are the distant, yet distinct trees and their reflections right at the vanishing point. As to the dark foreground, I wouldn't want it brighter, because it epitomizes the melancholy. If you temporarily crop the bottom 1/6 of the image with your hand, the whole picture changes -- it's not melancholic anymore. So the dark foreground is essential.

Agree on what Chris said, tones are just perfect to convey the melancholic atmosphere of this scenery. The sky fits nicely, low flying clouds feel close and oppressive, well composed in vertical with wide angle. First I was not sure about the dark toned cloud in the upper right, but then I think it is nice as counterpart for the bright sky zone at the horizon. An elaborate composition, with lots of shadow detail to explore.

 

Cheers

Carsten

wonderful tristesse with a subtle dynamic feel to it!

To me, this image conveys a strong sense of solitude and the quiet that can only be found in big land. Not really melancholy but more a sense of brooding quiet. David, I always think your skies are eye catching but mere appetizers to the main course of beautifully detailed foregrounds. Quality of line here is superb. The imagery of depth is hard to capture and done masterfully here.

 

The soft light and relative darkness of the foreground works for me as part of the whole. One thing you might play with is using LAB mode to slightly steepen and further separate the colors of the foreground. It does not alter the luminosity of the scene but might add a touch of subtle color definition. Quick example attached.

What caught my eye first David ,was the diagonal line of light in the bg.and its encounter point with the diagonal line of the trees, than the vast sky with small clouds that are slowly opening going up and are more amorphic,and than back to the ground with two diagonal water lines, that are enhancing the atmospher of silence, which I meet in your work not for the first time.I connect to that " no man's land" as there is light at the end of it.Beautiful, Pnina

Thanks everybody. You are all most generous in sharing your observations and skills. I really appreciate the time taken to share your responses. Chris, seems you have a great ability to articulate compositional elements -- this helps us all to see. Chuck this is going to perhaps be a bit darker than some would like. Jeff thanks for your feedback. I actually think Patricia articulated this emotive quality better than did I with this title. There really is a sweet brooding quality to this, distinct from melancholy. Andrea you too responded to the emotional quality here. Thank you. Pnina, I too liked the tension that develops in the movement with the sky against the land. Carsten if this sky pleases you I know I am on to something. Charles you caught me -- this horizon like many of my others is off. Thanks for pointing that out. I really must invest in a level. My internal one is off about 1.5 degrees. Some may think I'm off a bit more than that, but that's another story. Pat, thank you most of all, you brief work with LAB color has pointed me in an important direction. Your version is exactly where this image wants to go. Thank you all so very much...

I'm impressed by Pat's tweaked version. The change is subtle but has a lot of impact. I'm curious: What is particularly useful about LAB color here? Could the same thing be done by selectively bumping up the saturation just a bit while masking out the sky and water?

It is melancholic, for sure. But with a hope... all lines help you imagine that there is a way out, and a brightly lit one.

 

The composition as such is interesting in that the vertical format -at first sight- contrasts with the flow toward the left hand side, the side of safety, and the way out of melancholy. This is appropriate, most likely, since makes this journey even more difficult: long horizontal lines would favour the flow toward that point. At the same time, only vertically you could get all the sky you need to make this escape desirable.

 

It just occurs to me that flipping this might give quite a different message; after all, many of us do tend to imagine the future to be to the R of an image, with our writing L->R bias. Is it less melancholic?

Chris: using the LAB color mode is valuable when you do not want to alter the relative contrast or luminosity. LAB puts all of the "lightness" and contrast control in the Lightness channel. Only color is affected in the A (cyan/magenta) or B (yellow/blue) channels. In RGB mode, changing saturation will also alter contrast and luminosity since RGB color is produced (in part) by changing brightness. If you are interested, take a look at Dan Margulis' book on LAB colorspace. I should also note that effecting mode conversions (RGB to LAB and back again) has a cost in image degradation, albeit slight in 16 bit. Still, not something you'd want to do without proper cause.

 

Salvadore, it is really interesting how flipping the image changes it. I'd stay with David's original though. Beginnings always seem brighter to me.

Thanks Patricia, I'll keep this in mind and try it out sometime. - Chris

Thanks again Pat for sharing your skills so generously. Salvatore thank you for your intrepretations as always you help us to see in new ways. Also interessting to see how much you changed the emotional impact with your version. Thanks all...

Drizzly and dreich, a cold breeze settles a film of rain on the face... not so much melancholy since its the kind of weather I like going out in and brings a smile to my face. Wonderfully subtle colouring, and a great texture to the clouds. The diagonal on the left created by the hint of sky(sky! yuch!) really helps balance out the treeline.

 

The middle foreground feels a little awkward, because of the mixing of the greys of the rivlet's sand and the brown, but nothing major.

I like this even more than the 'wistful' horizontal composition. Again, the mysterious land forms contrasted with the highly textured, dominant bright skies creates an evocative whole. Great work.

David, a fine shot with delicate tonal qualities especially in the foreground. The cloud formation is very good and transforms the shot. Having said that I don't feel any melancholy feelings but rather a quiet inwardness. Persoanlly I would lighten some of the foreground but that is a matter of taste.

Thanks Stephen, Leigh, and Colin. Interesting comments from you all...