the visual journey - gallery i The Reflection Tarn

Rainier reflected in an alpine tarn high in the Tatoosh range.

This scene just screamed B&W to me. Its high contrasts and the monotone nature of the landscape coupled with the mood of a B&W rendering made me forget about the color version. There were signs of a great sunset developing at about 7pm on this stormy evening when I captured the image high in Washington's Tatoosh range, but clouds became to thick at the last moment. Fortunately, I felt this B&W I created just before the mountain disappeared was every bit as powerful. Thanks for looking.

 

5D, 17-40 at 24mm, 2-stop hard grad pulled down to the top of the hills only, B&W conversion is CS2 + necessary contrast adjustments.

HI Marc. This is a beautiful shot. Great atmosphere. I would like to see the colour version though. ALso I would suggest that you do not centre the horizon so perfectly. Maybe a little more forground or a little more sky. But in this case it seems to work well because of the detail in the water. Really a beautiful shot!!!

A masterpiece !

Congrats

Marc, what can I say? Another winner. It just seems like you're always there to capture THE perfect moment and that's why I respect you as a photographer as much as I do because I know stuff like this isn't pure luck. It's patience, perseverance, and hard work. The clouds are perfectly placed. It almost seems as though the mountain is radiating a glow. I'm curuous to what the color version looks like.

Excellent shades of gray, very nice composition.

 

cheers,

calin

Wonderful shot. Regards.

Marc, that's an excellent image, what can I say?. For me really excellent. I like very much the BW use, how you used the polarizer to show the first stones in the water and obviously the dramatic sky. Kind regards master.

Apart from your vision, ability to capture the perfect light, I am often amazed at how 'clean' your images appear at least on the web. I mean the lack of obvious photoshop artifacts. I know you spend very little time behind the computer so this makes sense. It looks like you polarized to get the foreground rocks in & you don't mention this in your specifications, although from experience it is sometimes not necessary as this helps to get a smooth transition from see below to see above in the midground.

Wonderful landscape and excellent B&W!

One aspect that I find amazing in your work is how consistently pinsharp it is from front to back. I use similar equipment usually without the same sharpness. I was wondering how often you use miror lock-up mode as this could be a factor.

Kah Kit, it's very important to keep in mind that apparent sharpness at web resolution has nothing to do with sharpness at 100% full resolution unless the image was significantly out of focus to begin with. I've developed my own unconventional technique for web sharpening that beats pretty much anything out there for detail on screen. You can follow the link to a tutorial listed on my recent "rainbow falls" post. That said, I'm confident in my field techniques as well and consistantly produce very sharp images. But like I said, the web should never be used to evaluate image sharpness. And yes, mirror lock-up is important when using shutter speeds from 1/60 to 4 seconds but minor improvements in sharpness would not be visible on the web sized image.

Thanks for sharing Marc. I have already uploaded a shot using this unusual but effective sharpening technique.

Bravo, superbe photo !

The foreground is splendid and the mountain seems to float in the background... it's superb Marc.

 

Le premier plan est splendide et la montagne semble flotter au loin, c'est superbe.