land of stones

I like the the perspective of this image. The endless depth of field also add to the appeal of this picture. I do however feel that the colors of the rocks look a little off though.

Zsolt,  Nice image.  It rocks. I agree with Benjamin's comment.  This seems either  over saturated or a bit too HDRy if it indeed is an HDR?  You might also sharpen the image a little more.  Best to you.  Larry

hi!

thank you very much for your time and comments, even if i dont agree with you at some points :)

this picture is a single exposure shot, besides, i never use HDR programs. no major intervention here, only a bit of contrast and saturation added. the color on the rocks, in fact, all the colors are indeed a bit strange, but this is not caused by HDR, nor processing, it is because of the very special light conditions, the end of blue hour and the moment of first rays of light, when all the landscape was filled with a magenta cast. this special light is the whole point of this photo, so i enhanced it, but only very very slightly.

 all the sharpening is in vain if you look at the small size and not click for the large version. the large is the real size of the photo and it is sharp (and even more if you look at it on my website). the smaller view is created by this site and it destroys the sharpness.

all the best!

Zsolt

Zsolt,

 In this era of digital post production modification of images, much of the creativity takes place long after the shutter is pressed.  Perhaps it is because I am the product of many years of film photography, only recently converted to digital, but I feel that you stepped over the boundary between real and obviously unreal with this picture.  As a piece of obvious fantasy it has its place, perhaps in association with science fiction.

Superb work, Zsolt.

Bw, Volker

thanks again!

Jerry: you seem to not read my answer to the previous critique. this photo is definitely not "obviously unrealistic" and have nothing to do with science fiction. it does look different than the conventionally accepted natural look, but this is mainly caused by the very special light conditions and has very little to do with excessive digital post processing. my creative role in this processing was not to create these colors, rather the decision to keep them, and instead of reducing it to conventional, i enhanced a little bit.

What is a matter of a "little" saturation and manipulation is subjective and relative. What the photo looks like is the most important thing, even more so than how it was accomplished. Even if I knew this was straight out of the camera, I would have the reaction others have. I don't personally care for the way it looks or the way it renders the scene. If it looks unreal and like a caricature it looks that way no matter how it was accomplished. I've seen plenty of scenes look such a way that I don't want to capture them that way in a photo. Just because something is "real" doesn't mean it works photographically. It's hard to argue with what a viewer SEES, regardless of how it got there. We'd need to see the original RAW file to determine what a "little" photoshopping has done, but even then, it would still look the way it looks. Compositionally, I actually don't get that much a sense of depth here, even though it's obviously shot from a perspective to maximize that foreground/background feeling. If that is light on the mountaintops (the reddish color), it doesn't look like light, it looks simply like color. And because of the somewhat even distribution of light from foreground to background, I am finding a flatness to this rather than an intriguing sense of depth as we move from the foreground rocks to the background peaks.

Thank you, by the way, for being willing to engage in dialogue. So many of the Photos of the Day get comments that go unanswered by the photographers and it is great that you've engaged the comments you've received.

It seems to me that in many cases the guiding philosophy for this creativity is that if some amount is good, a little bit more will be that much better.  I often think that if it starts to get noticed, it has gone too far.

Having seen light like this fairly frequently, the colors of the rock don't strike me at all, and I probably wouldn't have even noticed the blue-gray tones if it hadn't been mentioned by others. I wonder, however, if Zsolt might have done better here if he had not tried to tweak a good thing to make it just a little bit better.

I sometimes agree with Fred regarding his comment that even something completely natural might not necessarily work in a photograph. But I don't agree here, and I think this just points out the subjective element in making this determination.

Overall, I'd really like to see the original before the colors were tweaked.  I have a feeling that would appeal aesthetically more than this version, including the amount red in the foreground and on the distant peak.  But that's just a guess.

I like that it is 'out of the ordinary'. That it makes people engage in the image, You've done well here Zsolt. Compliments on Photo of the Day

I think a photo can be "out of the ordinary" in several very different ways.  My favorite example is neon-green algae on a Washington State coastline.  That's out of the ordinary because it has never been seen -- it exists only in the mind of the photographer.  Frankly, I personally don't care for that kind of "out of the ordinary" if it is trying to come across as a natural scene (sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, and the distinction makes a big difference, IMO).  Out of the ordinary compositions and lighting (of landscapes) usually catch my eye in a positive way.

I so look forward to the time when we can once again spend a week of public discussion like we've had today on Zsolt's photograph.

i'm very happy that my photo was chosen "Photo of the day" and to read these great comments! i attach here the original version, just to compare.

Fred!

thank you for your comment, it is so good to read a detailed critique which is objective and constructive. 

 i never really strived to process my photos to be real or natural, as i try to express moods and impressions, rather than capture the objective reality. i just felt the need to prove that it is very close to reality because of the exaggerated and unjust critiques above. 

 but i agree the most aspects of your critique, in theory you have 100% right. however, there is one thing that i absolutely disagree: that this kind of light doesnt work photographically. i believe that nor the scenery, nor the processing aren't close to be called sci-fi, caricature-like, or fake.

in landscape photography the use of light, the decision to choose the light which the author finds appealing, contributes enormously to one's style. i dont think this light was flat, i like the diffuse and strangely coloured light of the blue hour. and that red spot in the peaks looks exactly how the first rays of sunrise suppose to look, no less, no more. the only thing that can be distracting is the slightly excess of saturation. which is, again, subjective and i like it that way, it is part of my style.

the composition is not exactly about that typical foreground/background feeling, i wanted to focus on the size and weight of foreground boulders. i could find plenty smaller rocks if i wanted to give it more sense of depth. but i wanted something different here.

Thank you so much for posting the original. Clearly, there are very different understandings of having "very little to do with excessive digital post processing." To me, this is very highly post processed and has traveled a great distance from the realism of the original photo and the original scene. These are very unrealistic-looking colors and has lost the softness of the light of the original. It is nothing like what one would see in nature. Your posting the original is most welcome and really does help clarify things. I do agree that the original does need post processing to recapture some of the beauty and soft light you undoubtedly saw in the scene before you, but the post processing could capture that realism and softness of light without becoming quite such a neon world of fantasy.

Stephen and Art X!

thank you too for your feed-back! it seems you are the ones who feel this photo in a similar way as i do, and as i wanted it to be. i am looking forward to hear you guys, what do you say about it when compared to the original file.

I just saw your additional response to me. Thank you so much for engaging in this dialogue. It is great. I thought, from some of your comments, that you did want a "natural" or "real" look. Now I see that's not as important to you as I may have originally thought. So, it might just be a matter of description of how we actually see. If this result is the kind of result you want, more power to you and you should go for it. It's just, to me, nowhere close to the original photo you posted and looks very strongly manipulated. To describe it as not having strayed far from the original, especially in terms of light and color, just seems off to me. It really has taken on a completely different look and feel from the original and I honestly don't think "caricature" is a false characterization or meant meanly. I'd take it constructively. If you don't want a caricatured look, you might consider moderating your post processing. If you like this look, you might have to come to recognize the very unreal and distant nature of it. You've had several comments using words you don't seem to like, but the comments are all consistent and, to me, not far off the mark. You might want to give that some weight.

Fred, i am also glad we have this discussion and i appreciate your words. 

Let me clarify a few more things. in my opinion, to think that the unprocessed raw file, or any image straight of the camera is close to reality is a big mistake. the cameras of nowadays are still pretty far to be able to capture something similar to the human eye. in our case, even if i exaggerated with the post-processing, the final result is still much closer to the reality as the unprocessed one. the reality is somewhere in between. and when i stated that this image is not heavily over-processed, i meant that it is not far away from what i've seen with my own eyes. as Stephen said, this kind of light is not so uncommon in the mountains, especially in the morning. and i said i don't consider this a manipulated photo, because i did not add any elements or colors which wasn't there, only increased the contrast and saturation.

On the other hand, you argued well, and everybody seem to agree that the post-processing is over the top in this case, so, i accept that. i even did a re-visited version, which you will find on the link below:

http://www.szabozsoltandras.ro/image/gallery/1/851

is this more acceptable? let me know what you think.

Thanks. Let me make sure of something. I don't think RAW files are necessarily close to natural and I don't personally care whether or not many photos look natural in a lot of cases, though in some cases I do. Many of my own photos are intentionally not natural-looking. I know how much post processing it can take on a RAW file to get it to look like what you saw at the original scene. I think we see differently. And I am convinced some people think they are recreating what they think they saw at the time (or something close to it) but they actually are not that close. That, to me, is a matter of vision and a skill that needs to be honed. I also don't think it's necessary to recreate what you saw. I think it's fine to use what you saw as the raw materials for a creative photograph. I just don't particularly care for what you came up with, as it seems to have very little to do with what I feel or see or think about when I am out in beautiful landscapes. I looked at your other working of this and I would say that neither could possibly look even close to what you actually saw, though it is a look that is popular and prevalent on photography sites. To me, it simply looks nothing at all like what reality ever looks like, has looked like, or could look like outside of a Walt Disney movie studio. And, even if we are willing to stray quite far from reality, this direction is one I simply don't get off on straying to.

yes, the final conclusion is that we see reality very different. the re-worked version is very close, almost equal to reality, people who have seen many mountain sunrises will probably accept that. i am very sure that it is, just as you are sure it isn't, we will never agree at this point. this look may be popular at photo sites, but very few people can do it right, most of them only try but don't succeed. anyways, i would be very very curious what kind of look do you find appealing in fine art landscape photography. i would be glad to see some links.

my main goal with fine art landscape photography is to show people the way i see things, not the objective reality. so, which one of us has right about real look is not really important. this is the kind of light i find appealing, this is the kind of look which i wanted to represent, this is the direction in which i want to go when i depart a little bit from reality. this is my vision, it took many years to develop it. i think it is a positive thing that we see things differently, and i feel it is necessary for somebody to represent this kind of look.  to compare this to Walt Disney look or SF i think it is a huge misunderstanding somewhere, we are not on the same wavelength. probably, this genre is not for you. thanks to your generous and objective comments, i was able to see my images from your perspective, and now i am aware that this visual message i represent can be read by some people very differently from what i wanted to express. you probably also have an idea from this experience, how you suppose to understand this kind of photos, maybe you could become more tolerant towards this kind of photos.

I'll throw my $0.02 in here if that's o.k.  One of the promises of digital processing is that it can overcome the limitations of the camera and film/sensor and deliver a photograph that is much closer to what the eye actually experienced.  I'm always so impressed with what Dirk Jurguensen (I may not have spelled his last name correctly) can do with HDR to bring a high contrast scene, especially one that contains the sun, to resemble what the eye would likely see, yet his processing is not at all apparent.  It's only by looking at the photograph, seeing the contrast, and seeing the detail where it should be seen (and not seeing it where it would likely be hidden from the eye) do I slowly realize that HDR has been used.

Zsolt, thanks for posting the raw file -- that helps greatly.  I would describe your processing as more than just a tweak -- I think you've altered this quite significantly.  Yes, I've seen blue mountain twilight a number of times, and I can relate to the direction your processing was heading.  But I do think it went too far if one is wanting to convey the experience of standing in this spot at that moment (which, IMO, is a worthy goal because that natural light is so beautiful, and the time of day is so peaceful as conveyed by that light).

However, if you're not wanting to convey what you saw and instead "tweaked" it a bit beyond what was in front of you, then it seems there is little for me to add.  I'm not in that camp.  I think nature is so incredibly beautiful on it's own that it doesn't need any help or any interpretation from me.  About 2.5 hours ago I was standing on one of the minor viewpoints at Bryce Canyon National Park, prior to sunrise, it was 33 degrees and the sky clear, and I was alone except for a woodpecker rat-a-tatting on a snag in the far distance.  I thought of my biology professor who emigrated from Russia, the most incredible natural historian I've ever known, now deceased for about 10 years, and how much he would revel in this quiet moment.  I photographed for about an hour.  The light prior to sunrise was superb.  There is nothing for me to add, nothing to interpret, just a desire to share some of the small compositions that collectively made up the entire scene.  Such is the diversity of photographic goals.

For your posted photograph, I would have recommended the Goldilocks approach:  something beyond the raw, of course, but not quite as strong as you've posted.  That's my $0.02, and I think I suggested that in my original comment.  This would have been a great POW with a larger participating group.

I very much appreciate the work of Joel Meyerowitz.

On PN, I like the work of Ian Cox Leigh, who has a strong point of view and does post process his work and who I think reaches the kind of balance, nuance, and lack of imposition Stephen is talking about, in addition to Stephen's own excellent work.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting your work should be like theirs by any means. I am glad you are searching for your own voice. You asked for examples of landscape work I find appealing, and these are just a couple of them.

By the way, I live in Northern California and have travelled extensively throughout the various mountain ranges in California, Nevada, Colorado and back east in the mountain regions of New England and the Smokies in the south, not to mention the amazing lands of Switzerland and Austria.

thank you again for your valuable thoughts, i really appreciate your advices, and will definitely think about them in the future.

Stephen: you really got this put into words, the right words. now i can explain even better my point: i really like your approach and photos. but the difference between us is in the mentality, the approach: because i feel that i definitely want to interpret in my own way what i see. i think i am part of a new generation of photographers who have some kind of an impressionistic approach to landscape photography. i consider my work fine art in the first place, not necessarily nature photo.

Fred: i also like very much the photos of Ian Cox Leigh, i knew them from photo.net. they are really artistic. but if i look at some photos, especially the mountain landscapes, i find very strong contrast and saturation levels, at least as strong as mine, and really can't understand how can you appreciate one, while refusing the other? btw, if you look at my portfolio, not all of my photos are "over the top", this is definitely between the controversial ones, and my pictures may appear different on different websites. i do my processing in a way to be optimized for my own website, where it looks as i like it.

"really can't understand how can you appreciate one, while refusing the other?"

Ian's photos, no matter how saturated or with what level of contrast, maintain an organic quality, as if it is from this earth, while he's developed (as you want to as well) a personal style. Yours sometimes have the feel of neon and often look not of this earth, to me and in my eyes . . . and as we've said to other posters in this thread as well.