colour landscapes Wainstones Sunset

Taken last night at the Wainstones, North Yorkshire. Any feedback or

comments welcome. Thanks.

Yves,

Thanks for the comment. Just to be clear on the technique elements, I didn't use true HDR on this one (e.g. with Photomatix) but I did manually merge in a darker exposure over a small area covering the very brightest bit of the sky and a lighter exposure over the land.

cheers,

John.

John,

Thank-you for technical details. It illustrated the fact that "true HDR" is not necessary to get a very good picture. In fact, you may get a better control by just merging two images as you did. Compliments. Cheers. Yves P.

John,

I still think the transition between the light foreground grasses and dark rocks is too obvious. Since you have multiple exposures to work with, I would suggest darkening the foreground slightly, and dodging some of the areas in the dark rocks for a more seamless look. Don't get me wrong, I don't think there's anything wrong with boosting or darkening areas of an image in order to convey the desired effect, but here it is too obvious that either a split ND or combining of exposures was done.

Anish

I am not an expert in this kind of landscape photography but I want to learn. Could you tell me what is wrong in the attached version of.your picture (adjusted with PS as a raw file). Thank you very much. Yves P.

Yves,

Certainly nothing 'wrong' that I could see. You seem to have made different creative decisions, sacrificing a little saturation and mid tone contrast to gain shadow detail. There's a certain amount of personal style and preference in that and personally I'm not sure I'd lighten this image that far but I welcome any suggestions of that kind and the discussion here's really helpful.

cheers,

John.

Anish,

Thanks - again it's useful to get feedback on how other people see the image. To help the discussion, there's actually no transition from either the grads or the merge of exposures here along the rock-grass line that you mention, just the natural one that's caused by the light silhouetting the rocks but lighting the grass. The grads on the camera are running diagonally from top right to bottom left along the upper parts of the rocks, and the masked merge is following the rock/sky transition.

The rocks did appear in near-silhouette to the eye as the sun broke through and I made a decision not to lose that but your comments have prompted me to play a little more with options on the masks. I don't want to take the shot away from the natural feel of the place but I might try a few variations.

cheers,

John.

Great work with a very dificult lighting situation, the boulders are very similar to the gritstone boulders in the West yorkshire Pennines which are very dark to start with, making a good exposure difficult in all but perfect lighting.

Dave.

David,

Thanks. Yes - maybe that's why it looks right to me but why it's not coming across in the shot. The rocks are very dark to start with and darkened even further by the damp conditions. I guess I know that from being there and it looks right, whereas if you're assuming they're mid-tone grey they maybe look artificially dark.

Enjoying the discussion on this one.

J

Hi John,

Wow this is a very dramatic image. The colours in the sky are fantastic.

I've found the above discussion of your image very interesting. I must admit my first response on seeing the rocks was to think that they had been overly darkened to retain detail in the sky. I think the contrast between the light grasses and black rocks is possibly too great to be readily 'believable' (whatever that means) to someone such as myself who was not there at the time (or who is unfamiliar with the natural colour of the rocks), however this may be in part because the sun burst on the left hand side does not appear to be lighting the valley beneath it (or the foreground on the left hand side). thus it appears as though the image is under exposed but with an artificially lightened foreground in the right hand corner. Perhaps if the valley was lighter the rocks would look more natural - more obvious as a silhouette. Just a thought - that is my initial impression in observing the image. Also just to complicate things, I do prefer your more saturated version over the lightened one posted above.

an interesting image taken in very tricky light!

cheers,

Ben

Great shot, i agree with what's been said above you did well to capture this much detail in the foreground. A filter would not have been any good (as i have learned) they are great if you have a flat horizon.

Good work.

Thanks for your comment on my Holy Island shot.

Terry.

Lovely light contrasts in the superb scene with the f/g grasses showing detail and texture compared to the almost sihouette of the rocks. The whole is capped by a stunning sky.

Regards,

John