Mont Blanc du Tacul. Summit View SW on the Mont Blanc and the Mont Maudit

Here the route we took to the summit and the angle to which the picture was taken. It is roughly a thousand meters ascent over open crevasses (plus several hours in the night to get there from a hut in Italy, plus several hours to come down and get over the Aiguille du Midi to catch the last cablecar down). Note how the Mont Blanc and the Mont Maudit swap places due to the change in viewing angle.

This picture (and the other of this folder) were taken during the

ascent of the Mont Blanc du Tacul. This is from the 4000 meters of the

summit, looking toward two other giants, the Mont Blanc and the Mont

Maudit.

Suggestions on the composition and the crop are most welcome!

Although the light is not the usual alpenglow, it is soft enough to provide textured snow. The angle of the composition did give a pano feel. Planning to blow this up to 20" so that you can really enjoy the image?

Leading lines from the bottom right across to the peak is well thought out.

Polarizer has somewhat darkened the sky inconsistently but to me, this is minor.

A suggestion would be to get someone (with a bright colored jacket) to stand at the peak or somewhere further so that the viewer can really comprehend the scale of this mountain.

Excellent image!

thanks for your insight. The summit does not fit two people, and the only thing you can see, there, is a stone not more than 50cm across: magic of the 20mm.A cloured jacket option from another trip is here.

Actually. As for the grain it is a coolscan V, default options for the capture software. Mind that my finger slipped and this is NOT Kodak gold 100, but rather Fuji Reala 100. I did not use Reala 100 after this trip anymore because it was "greening" and "blueing" rocks too much.

As for the Gold 100 grain, I still did not a find consistent understanding of the problem. Some skies (when crop gets tighter) like here come out very grainy, but other times they are just normal.

The only thing I don't like in the original is the shadowed area down in the corner. Although, maybe the shadow provides a counterweight against the overexposed ridge of snow just to the left of it? What do you think? The crop I've suggested here is just to get rid of the shadow, and taken a little off the left to give it a squarer format. Of, course, if the shadow is providing a balance against the highlights, this crop eliminates that balance. I'm not really sure if it needs a crop, though. The longer I look at it, the less the shadow bothers me, but that's because my eye's busy taking in the details in other parts of the picture.

Stephen,

thanks for haveing taken the time to propose a crop. I will consider some square format of the Blanc and Maudit in some next instalment of this series.

The two reasons for which I am not screaming in joy for that are the shadow and the ridge. The shadow is funny in that fills a large distance comes from a much further structure than the snow flank on which it is projected. A classical phenomenon in the mountain which is nice to see. Moreover there was a concept of repetition of three structures. There are three darker objects on the bottom, and three peaks (according to how you count the white bumps) on the top.

Actually, these white bumps to the right and the entirety of the ridge are also quite precious to me to put the Mont Blanc into contest, and this also conspires to preferring this crop.

Andrea, thanks, that's what I like of the frames indeed.