"Grasses of Summer"

Your thoughts are appreciated!

Excellent composition, but that's just old habit to you :-) I like all the different textures, plenty to keep and hold interest. Good job controlling that wind!

Gotta say, Mark, that this really turned out nicely. Amazing light conditions and rendered so well in black and white; somehow it seems to glow. Superb details in FG grasses. Nifty sky too. This has it all. Very California. Nice work! A 7/6 anonymously. Cheers! Chris

I agree with Chris about the foreground grasses. Pin sharp, and with excellent brilliance. Very well done.

I'd increase the contrast on the hills, and the visible foreground rocks. Tricky on the foreground, though, because the grasses are perfect, and more contrast would overdo it. I've attached a quickly rendered version, to show what I mean. High and low-end contrast were increased in a levels adjustment, with the sky masked out by a linear gradient, and the grass masked out by paintbrush (including the tops of the grasses that are visible in front of the hills).

Great image 6/6.

John: makes me realize what should be done with photoshop to bring out the best in an image.

I see this is an older post, but I wanted to throw in my vote to leave this image as is. I think boosting the contrast in the background hills hurts the image quite a bit. Contrast is the best way to create a sense of depth in a photo (especially in B&W, where contrast is all you have), and you have just the right amount of contrast in your original image to not only give the perception of distance, but to convey the soft, rolling texture that these hills probably displayed at the time of capture.

 

 

Anish