Between Earth and Sky: going down.

I'm trying to improve my craft for alpinism scenes and I'd appreciate

some feedback on this image.

 

Does the composition work for you?

 

Is there too much sky?

 

What about the position of the climbers? And the foreground ridge?

 

Thanks!

I like that "ambiance" image. Proportions and composition are OK. I'm just not absolutely sure about the scanning quality, and if the subject (two red people going down in the mountains) makes it a subject interesting enough. And I cannot find a real point of interest to contemplate: is it that window in the sky ? Is it the red color on the blue sky ? (but we both know the difficulty to make a mountain picture look original enough and sometimes we just get there by chance). cheers ! chris

Chris, thanks for the message. As for the scan quality, after cropping, if I shot into the sky, I cannot get better than this out of Gold100... As for the things to contemplate... I liked the way these three (you know there's another, do you?!) climbers were nicely against the sky, at the border of earth and sky. Did you ever consider how important these borders are? We go on the beach because we love the border between earth and water. We go to volcanos for the border between fire and sky. And we eventually go to mountains for the border between earth and sky, indeed.

 

If I really cannot keep your attention up, then, come up for a little game: how many mistakes do you spot in their mountaneering technique? I guess this will keep you busy for a while... !

 

Ciao, s.

Right Salvatore, you got me back for this little game ! But first let me tell you I completely agree about your "border" theory. One could even mention the border between light and shadows. Maybe that's just the point here: some more contrast (but would the film quality allow it ?) and your buddies' head in this "cloud window" in the sky would probably have made that invisible border more visible. Also (but that's just theory) the viewer's eye is probably drawn more by the slope down to the right than up towards the sky. But this is so easily said, I'm sorry for it. Now to the alpine technique, well ... aren't your buddies going down a bit fast with respect to such a splendid panorama (and of course that smart photographer always asking them to match with his compos ?) salut et a+ chris

Dynamic composition. It works for me! There's a lot of noise of course but that's another matter.By the way, what are they doing wrong in their technique?

Rena, thanks for your comments. In the limits of my ignorance in many of the things of the mountains, I think they've far too short a rope, should the leader meet a crevasse the follower will indeed follow right in. The follower has the ice axe in the wrong hand, to start stopping a small slide it is far more effective uphiss than downhill. Finally, and worse, the ice axe of the follower is also kept the wrong way round. If you fall you want to pusk the spiky part of its head right in the snow/ice, and put your body weight on it. Therefore you keep this part toward the back of your body, as it is now, should she fall, instead of getting the spiky part into the snow it will end in her eyes or therabout...

Salvatore, thanks for the detailed explanation!

Excellent. Good sense of height due to the other mountains in the background. The composition itself I think is perfect. The climbers are well positioned within the frame. The sky and the background puts everything into context. As to the quality, there is grain, and I'm not too sure about using Gold 100 to start with, but even with scanning my Fuji Reala(100) I also get grain sometimes. Although negative film has greater exposure latitude, from my personal experience I get the best results when I scan slides (Fuji Provia, Velvia). However, these are more expensive to buy, you have to get the right exposure while shooting, and you need a good lab to get them developed professionally, which is also more expensive than the "regular" negative processing. We lead a difficult life.