Park Avenue-Arches-8019a-bw-med

A view from the top of Park Avenue in Zion National Park, Utah. Working on my B&W

PP skills. Your comments and feedback requested and sincerely appreciated.

Oops! Correction: Arches National Park, Utah.

Very nice image David! Since I've been here a few times, I sure like your perspective of this. TFS!

A nicely composed image with good lines going from right to left. Just think I would have been tempted to crop a small amount off the left side as that does seem to pull my attention away from the main subject. Like the monochrome processing, good tones with just the right amount of light and dark. Looks a super location to grab some really nice images and this capture is one. Very well done, best regards Ken.

Looks great to me. Exposure is spot on - great detail in the rock and enough in the clouds to provide interest and lines leading into the central formations. I like the dark lower corner as a base and fulcrum that the right wall hinges on. I've been surprised by how often I prefer black and white in my own photos of the incredibly colorful SW, this is a perfect example.

Cheers

PDE

Tm; Thanks for visiting and commenting. I'm very glad you like it.

Ken; I played with a number of different crops, but none made the overall image better, though some addressed very localized issues in the image. I may play some more, based on your comment. Utah has amazing red rock formations like Britain has historic stone churches;-) I'm gratified that you like this image, since you have an excellent eye for your own.

Jim; A "well done" from you means a lot. I tried to apply some of the suggestions received on the Great White Throne image, and they appear to have been successful. Thank you, sincerely, for your time and input.

Very nice view aesthetically, may be sky a little overdone in highlights, with an excellent allover midtones.

Regards.

Pierre; Thank you for your interest and encouragement.

Saad; The sky was, and remains, a real challenge. I used an adjustment brush to pump up the blue sky so it could be seen through the almost continuous clouds. Any suggestions for an alternate PP will be appreciated. Thank you sincerely for your time and feedback.

Great scene and capture.

Chris; Thank you for your time, interest, and kind words.

Very nice landscape, David.  Excellent composition and tonal range.  The only thing that I might change would be to darken the lightest portions of the sky in the top third. Perhaps a ND filter?

Very well done...

Hi David,

I echo the comments made before me. The composition is very apt, could not be better. The only element missing is a man in a cowboy hat on horseback :-)

About the sky, I think you can reduce the highlights slider in Lightroom, lower the exposure slightly, then reduce the blue filter and increase the red filter. It needs to be seen whether this can help. Otherwise, burning the sky in Photoshop is always an option.

Jerry & Supriyo; The sky has been heavily PP'd in both LR and PS in order to bring out and darken what little blue was available. I'll go back and see what else I can do, based on your suggestions, but I have already maxed the blue & red sliders (the red to the point where it is near to corrupting the red rock), and applied the burn/dodge tool as well. I had so much PP in the sky I had to go back and clone out the halo around most of the red rock. Going back to capture this with less cloud is clearly an option, but not immediately available.:-) Any other suggestions will be sincerely appreciated.

David,
I did some surgery on your image (apologize for that) and produced this. The sky was darkened using the curves in PS, followed by selective dodging of the cliffs. Let me know if you like this.

Here is the curve setting.

If a viewer can't derive a feeling of great majesty from this image, the viewer is blind.  It's as if these amazing rock formation were sculpted with the anticipation that they would be photographed.  

My best,

michael

Oh my.  I think the revised version is much better IMO.  Excellent job  !!

I vote for the original as David posted it. What I immediately liked about this photo when I came across it is how the subject and the perspective on it provides the drama. I think the drama of the arches against a less dramatic, softer sky works really well here, and also seems organic. To my eye, darkening the sky provides only a sort of expected photographic type of drama and is quite a bit less subtle, sensitive, and inviting. 

Supriyo's reworking, IMO, gives me a more ominous, heavy feeling. I prefer the airier more ethereal feeling of the original sky. Interestingly enough, if it were me, I might go for the darker arches in Supriyo's version (probably not quite as dark, though) with the lighter sky in David's original. Rather than an increase in overall contrast (light and dark) throughout the photo, I might opt for an increase in contrast between the earthiness/jaggedness of the natural structures against the more ambrosial softness of the sky.

Notice how much lower the sky feels when looking at Supriyo's version. That affects my feelings about the sense of space throughout the photo as well as the sense of the expansiveness of what I'm looking at. I feel a bit closed in with the reworked version.

Supriyo, I have no doubt that many will prefer your version and appreciate your showing what you came up with. 

Here's one with the sky as is except for getting a little more texture into the very upper regions. Darkened the arches a bit while lightening the one at the far left. Also lightened the shadow in the lower left hand corner.

Fred,

Your thoughtful (as usual) comments are appreciated. Thank you for taking the time to view, comment, and offer an interesting perspective.

Fred,

I just noticed your comments and discussion. As always, you have provided a fresh new perspective. I agree, the sky in my modified version makes the image more 'generic' and catering to multitudes instead of being more personal. I admit, I have the tendency to over-emphasize sky features in black and white images. I have some other examples in my Black and White folder where I would tone down such features now if I could.

I would suggest to focus more on the curves settings I posted to demonstrate that the sky can be 'recovered' to whichever extent David wants. For example, by moving the nodal points near the top of the curve, the sky contrast can be adjusted without touching the canyon. Same can be achieved for the canyon by adjusting the bottom points without affecting the sky much. I use this type of treatment in many of my BW images, preferably in the RAW developer.

Thank you for the interesting discussion.