Violet Reflections

Pre dawn light at Upper Tipsoo Lake.

Thanks for your comments!

The colours are beautiful, nicely balanced again but the alpenglow is the icing on the cake!

Simon

Thanks you all for your kind remarks. I got up before 4am to get here before sunrise, and it was well worth it! After sunrise the fog quickly rolled in and enveloped everything. I sat and my car and dozed for about an hour. The sun started to break through, so I hiked up the Natches Peak Trail a ways and got some more amazing pics of the sun piercing through the mist. I was back home around 12pm and took a nap. That morning wa nothing short of magical!

The shots I got exceeded my expectations, and transcended the meager equipment I had to work with. I've posted 3 other shots in my gallery from the same trip and will post more in the future. Check them out if you get the chance. Hopefully I can return on a similar morning with better equipment in the near future.

One thing though that bugs me as do many others about this site is the anonymous ratings system. If your'e going to rate someone a 3/3, don't be a coward and at least leave a comment as to why! Now, I'm no Marc Adamus or Simon Butterworth (YET), but I think most of my shots merit more than that.

Thanks again to all who took the time to comment.

Regards to all, Joe

Hello Joseph

First of all - beautiful location ! I wish I had a similar one close to my flat :)

Your composition and those trees in silhouette looks simply wonderful.

I would however like to see a bit more of a space from up & down - just to have more "space" in this shot and perhaps more conventional 3:2 aspect ratio would work better here.

When it comes to the technical side of your work I am not sure what kind of camera was used here (EXIF information is missing) but there are few things worth mentioning. I had a look at the large version and beside the fact it is really huge (I don't think you need to post such a big files) I noticed some post-processing artifacts. You can see some nasty colour noise (visible in the sky and some shadows parts)- which may be a result of oversharpening. My advice it to apply some noise reduction to the original file (programs like Noise Ninja, Neat Image can do wonders). Another advice is to take care when doing some final sharpening (avoid sharpening the edges - as it causes so-called 'halo effect').

Hope it was helpful.

Greetings from Scotland :)

Piotr

Thanks for the comment Piotr, I agree with you in most respects. As far as the composition, I zoomed in close to focus on the color and the symetry of the reflection. I have another shot in my gallery taken a few minutes later as the sun was rising. It was taken from a somewhat more distant perspective. Check it out and let me know what you think.

As far as the technical aspects go, I'm well aware of the shortcomings. First of all, I need to learn how to shrink the file size, I know it is too large to be viewable when opened up. For equipment, I used a borrowed Fuji 6mp point and shoot. It was hand held, as I had no tripod. I fixed it as best I could, I know it looks nasty when opened up. As I stated in other posts, all I have to work with right now is my Fuji F30 p&s. Don't have an extra 2K for a decent DSLR and lens at this point, let alone the filters I should have to to with them. Hopefully that will change in the next year or so! In the meantime I will try to create the best images I can with what I have, honing my composition and lighting skills, as well as better post- processing skills. I have Adobe Elements 2 currently. Again, I will invest in better software as money allows.

Also, I sure am lucky to live within an hour of such world class scenery such as they have here in the Pacific Northwest! It's hard not to be very inspired! Thanks again for taking the time to comment.

Regards, Joe