Colorado: Park County: Highway 285: 1975

While digging for other shots of the dewy leaves I found this moldy

oldy in the dusty archives. It was shot with my long gone Nikon F2 and,

as you can see, heavily polarized. Since it already seems to be fall

here in Colorado, I decided to resurrect it also. I sort of vaguely

remember this view was around back of a greasy spoon restaurant just

off Highway 285 to the southwest of Denver towards Bailey. Since this

has turned into a major traffic jam area I seldom go there anymore.

 

I know, I know... more trees framing the shot! What can I do? We have

no oceans here.

Trees... and, oh, some rocks... aaaand there was this huge buffalo chip...

I have to admit, I like the trees, but then again, I live in Nebraska..... I think the forground shadow may be a bit too dark and distracts me a little bit. The top of the photograph bothers me a bit, perhaps it is the blue sky and then the white cloud that seems to separate the sky. Overall, I think the shot still seems to work well.

Jim: I did find the original raw drum scan for this image. It's attached. It IS raw and unadjusted so critiquing it would be a waste of time.

 

Mr. Farnsworth-Livingston: You must excuse us. We do indulge in inside jokes. Since we live more than 1500 miles apart, it's okay.

So, we have trees framing a picture of...trees? Where does the framing end and the picture begin?

This is well composed, well exposed and even the extreme polarization adds to the beauty.

It's hard to imagine that folks were able to take such good pictures with primitive cameras, where you actually had to focus and advance the film by hand.

Gorgeous colours, but the deep blue sky doesn't seem to fit in. Neither does the cloud. Or maybe it's the combination of the two...? I would say the cloud could be OK because of the colour echo it makes w/ the path. Just a thought: why not crop out the sky completely?! lol!

Ahhhhh, it makes me want to hike 4 a little while... thing I can't do down in Florida!!!

And Mike, even now, you could encounter some people that are masochistic enough to use these dinausors of photography, where you do have to do everything by hand!!! Who? Me?! ;)

I'm having trouble following all this:

Fred posts another picture that's so good, we have trouble finding things to critique.

So Fred digs deeper in his drawer and finds an older, less polished version, so that we can have something to ding.

Have I got it right?

I like the composition of the 'original' image better, as it is not as tight (as this cropped version) and leaves some breathing room for viewers.

 

Lots of beautiful TREES!!!! I like the purity of the color, magic of using a polarizer. I agree with others that the blue sky is a bit too blue and looks unnatural here. May be you don't want to have the maximum effect of a polarizer and just rotate it to achieve a pleasing effect instead.

I need to get my butt up to the hills and take some aspen shots too I was thinking maybe around Marble or Aspen, Could do the way over done Maroon Bells shot.

Bobby: I'd do it this weekend if I were you. I have to go to NY this weekend so I'm hoping somebody good gets up there and shoots. They'll be gone by the time I can get up there again. There was fresh snow last week. It's gone now, of course. The trees are about as good as I've seen them for a while. Drought works wonders.

I agree the sky looks weird, I think it does have something to do with the stark contrast with the clouds. Actually, the previous comment to crop out the sky looks pretty good. Including a little bit, or even all of the clouds, but none of the blue sky really draws attention to the country road. Also, you wind up with light green and yellow trees on left and right, with darker green trees in the center, drawing the eye further down the road.

Beautiful backcountry dirt road shot, well composed.