zion national park Sun Worshipers

Larger View Available              I vowed not to stand elbow to elbow with other photographers on the bridge over the Virgin River to take the classic shot.  I found some quiet further down the valley, which I found reflected the afternoon light better on the Watchman and Bridge Mountain toward sunset.  The sky and mountain absolutely glowed, and luckily some glouds were in the sky that evening.  A bit of work to avoid telephone lines or buildings in the comps. of this classic ridge.  Wind was a real problem, so I experimented with high ISO to stop movement of trees. The was a 1.3 sec exposure at ISO 100 with little branch movement.

2 stop ND grad, handheld with slight movement
Single exposure

I vowed not to stand elbow to elbow with other photographers on the

bridge over the Virgin River to take the classic shot. I found some quiet

further down the valley, which I found reflected the afternoon light better

on the Watchman and Bridge Mountain toward sunset.

Harry,  This is a wonderful striking image.  The light is terrific.  If I were trying to improve the image I would process it at a resolution of at least 240-300.  Do this for all of your images.  I have all my images defaulted at a resolution of 300. I might lighten the dark red shadowed rocks a bit and then deepen the sky more using the levels adjustment.  I tinkered a bit and didn't get the sky exactly right, but my rendition gives you an idea of how I was thinking.  It's great to respond to really high quality images.  Nice work.

Larry - Thanks for the suggestions.  All of my files are converted from RAW to 300 dpi files, then reduced to 72 dpi for the web.  While I can see your point in opening up the shadow a bit, I feel your version has the blues in the sky much too dark, and the shadow opened up too much - looking more HDRish.  While I have no problem opening up shadows, I feel my version is a bit more toward how I perceived it.  Maybe removing some red from shadows would help remove a color cast?  Since therel is still plenty of detail in the shadows, I may keep them as is. 

I do like the definition of the clouds that you have brought out.  I haven't figured out how to do that - any suggestions?

Thanks for your observations, much appreciated.

Best, Harry