Spiral Beach

I spent a bit of time post-processing in LR4, mostly dodging/burning

to bring out the detail I wanted. Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Nathan Philps

Nathan,

 You have great tonality in this photo, but it suffers from the human subject being dead center in the image. (Dead center is compositionally dead)  Also the central figure is of similar tones to the hillside and does not stand out well.

Jerry

I think the subject here is the person as well as the dog, and it doesn't seem centered to me.  There is much more "weight" on the right than the left (and that is helped by the nature of the background).  When I saw the thumbnail, I too was worried that the person would blend too much with the hillside, but I suspect this is where you spent some time doing a bit of dodging.  The fact that her head is above the ridge line and her legs contrast so strongly with the path, I think she stands out just fine in the frame.  The dog really stands out, and I suspect some dodging helped here as well.  She seems to be looking ahead, while the dog is content to investigate something more immediate, and it's a photograph that I like.