Remember The Epine

Beautiful and otherworldly to say the least.

Well done!

Very Good (6)

Super moody image, very good use of the elements. Nicely composed and processed to give a calm but quite powerful capture. Best regards Ken.

Jeff, what a beautiful and very powerful photograph! Best regards, Marieke 

Thanks David, Tony, Chris, Marieke, and Ken.  After I took this shot I was knocked on my back by a foot-deep surge that threw pebbles into my boots.  I thought I was going to get sucked out to sea!  But I held the tripod & camera high in my right hand and sacrificed the filters in my left!  This is an awesome place.  Regards, Jeff

Thank heavens it was not worse.

A very good composition, lighting and capture of mood.  I guess you wanted to include a bit of the foreground beach and the sun was also very important in the composition, but I feel it would be nice to see a little more space (and cloud) above the sun

Hi Arthur.  Yes, I wanted to get closer and lower and include more close-up beach, but then I would've drown for sure and the equipment would've been destroyed!  The waves were very violent and the clouds ever-changing.  My thought of not including much sky above the sun was to increase mood and drama.  I have done this other times (e.g. see my Ontario in Winter 1 folder), and I think it works well.  Thanks again, Jeff   

Dear Jeff,

Wow, a truly fantastic image! As written above, fantastic mood and perfect shutter speed. As I can't rate it with a 7 right now, I'll wait and do it later.

Couldn't you have used your new 15mm Zeiss lense to be a bit wider? I understand that the conditions weren't those to change your lense, and I know that such terrific lighting is always ephemereal in Iceland... so I probably have the answer to my own question!

Best regards,

Alain

Hi Alain,

Thanks.  I viewed this through 15 & 20mm lenses but I felt they were too wide.  Using either of these I would have had to get closer and descend the pebbled ridge into a danger zone.  I know that I made the correct decision because had I done that I may not have been able to write about it, and I certainly would have lost all my gear and this image.  (If you go back to Iceland, you should certainly check out this area.)  This is the most violent surf that I've ever seen and been in!

On the technical of the making of this image, I shot at many speeds.  1/500 captured spray in mid-air and waterfalls over the background sea stack.  A 6-stop smoothed the surf to mush.  This image is a 9-shot multiple exposure, and was the last one I got before getting knocked on my back and swamped!  Scary thoughts went through my head at that moment.

By the way, I have decided to take a break from photo.net.  Some of my recent images are getting bombed and have very few comments.  This is not a new phenomenon, as I see that an image rated 6 a few years ago is lucky to get a 5 today.  And this is why some vets on here no longer ask for ratings and prefer that their egos ride on the 6s and 7s of years past.  I guess my ego has also been somewhat bruised!

My biggest joy is the experience of taking the photograph!  But, upon reflection, I feel that my processing is not adequate and that I could get much more out of the RAW file.  So I will be spending time learning and implementing software which I hope will give my images a "facelift" for posting and especially for printing.

All the best, Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for the information. When watching this image, it is hard to imagine how dangerous this place is. But I know how treacherous the ocean can be. I also had a couple of stress peaks when shooting in Reynisfjara and among Jökulsarlon icebergs. Glad that you could save yourself and your gear (I guess that your filters got wet and not taken by the stream, I am right?). I'll visit that place one day for sure!

About ratings: definitely, the ratings are no more what they used to be. And it is sometimes irritating to see the same group of fast raters giving low marks without taking time to comment - even very negatively, which can be useful to improve. It is especially irritating when you check the "user ratings" and find some people who give average ratings of 3 while their own portfolio shows no talent or not even nice pictures. On the other hands, a few "fast raters" are talented and inspiring.

Like you, I went through periods of uncertainty and discouragement just because a serie of images got much lower ratings than expected. Like many, I've hesitated to stop asking for ratings. But I've found ratings to be (sometimes) useful to make a selection of pictures for an exhibition. I also reassure myself with the conviction than the images of locally or even world-famous photographers would for sure get low ratings on PN, just because their work doesn't match what is expected here (and not there). Sometimes I wonder if those expectations hadn't a negative impact on how I take pictures, in a restrictive way...

All on all, I really hope that you will go on posting your images on PN (without asking for ratings), as I really do appreciate them!!!

Take care,

Alain