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Michael, I'm afraid this one does not grab me. The composition has real potential, with opportunities in relation to subject, color, texture, and mixed messages. However, the utterly flat light fails to take advantage of those opportunities. Sometimes it seems we find the perfect subject, and circumstances outside our control foil our best efforts. Alf Bailey has written about how many trips to Skye he had to make before capturing the image he wanted of a certain lakeside castle, all dependent upon just the right cloudscape. Keep working it.

Thanks so much for your thoughtful, helpful comments. Sadly, the likelihood of another shot is between slim and none. But I'll try tinkering with the lighting through pp to see if I can improve the image.

I attempted to enhance the lighting through postprocessing.  Your additional feedback will be most appreciated.

My best,

michael

Michael, your revised version definitely resolves some of the flat light effect. In an attempt to see if I could do what I recommended you do, I did a little PP work on your original image. I'm not sure if my outcome is any "better" than yours. My goal was to enhance the appearance of shadows so as to diminish the appearance of flat light. I also pumped up the color saturation a small amount, since colors always appear more saturated in sunlight than in shadow. Again, I'm not a Lightroom expert. This is just my attempt to see if I can follow my own advice. I made the following adjustments in Lightroom. Adobe Camera Raw has nearly identical tools.

1. Rotate the image to make the lava rock square with the edges of the frame, and crop to rectangular.
2. Curves adjustment: Lights +34, Darks -31.
3. Clarity slider +20
4. In the color channels: (Saturation) Red +9, Orange +7, Yellow +7, (luminance) Green -9.
5. Whites -33, Shadows -26.

You will have to decide if these adjustments make the image more or less true to your memory of and vision for this scene. I get accused, not infrequently, of using too heavy a hand in color saturation. In this case I believe it is valid to counteract the flat light, but that's just my opinion.

It is wonderful that you could make this trip to Africa. I am a bit jealous, but I hope it was everything you hoped it would be. Kindest regards, David.

You've been most generous with your effort and your time.  I've compared your treatment of the image with my revision, and I've noticed that yours involves much more contrast.  In my opinion, that really helps to bring out the detail.

Gratefully,

michael