On the Edge: Between Earth and Sky

4000 meters above see level, walking on the edge, hundredths of meters fall on both sides...

 

...does this make you hold your breath?

Certainly YES! Great shot Salvatore, composition is flawless with excellent lighting, congrats!

I wonder how you manage it to make a flawless composition under such conditions. The ridge works as lead-in, and the humans are placed in thirds, perfectly staged ;-) Impressive, reminds me of CD Friedrich`s "Wanderer above the Sea of Fog"

That's a wonderful picture. The snow seems little underexposed though. Wonderful composition!

Looks like a ladder to heaven ... nicely composed with effective placement of humans. Since colors are not really the key ingredients here (at least to me), I would explore this image in the monochromatic world and fool around more with the contrast and USM.

 

I can imagine a large print at 20x16" in a stunning B&W on the wall.

 

Beautiful!

Dr. Mele, this is a terrific photo. I'm worried about slipping off that ridge! The ridge line leading into the photo is really effective. I also like the blue of the horizon and the texture of the clouds. I'd consider cropping the right side a little to get the climbers a bit closer to the right edge.

 

By the way, how have you been? PN has recently lost many of its more active members, which is really too bad. Hope you are well.

This is a very powerful shot - it almost draws one right into the picture. It's a little scary just to look for a while. Excellent.

 

Best Regards,

 

Barry

"The man that came from the frost" ;-))Glad to see you posting again Salvatore.

As ususal it is a great description of places that "earthy" people can only dream of...

 

The diagonal direction starting in the LL bright till the top dark summit is breath taking only looking at the pic. Just to observe the " points" that are human being on that summit evocs an admiration to people that are ready for taking the challenge to be there(above the beautiful clouds, close to God) let alon producing an image of that quality. Hat off, Salvatore.

I like the way they're humbled by their surroundings - and the way the ridge leads your eye to them...

I've been very busy off photo.net, as of late, so I'm late to thank you all for your support and to answer a few points... I am also late in checking out your latest pictures, but this will hopefully come later.

• Carsten, I think thats more or less one of the two things I learnt in all these years trying to learn some photography (the other being to expose snow). I realise that I've been looking over and over again to my shots to crop and re-crop them in the last years so to develop now a sort of auto-pilot... I can just "see" the composition sometimes, take a glove off, get the camera and shot without thinking. Of course, you only get to see the things I dislike the least...
• Arthur, you have a very valid point. Exploring the textures of snow in B&W tempts me and so it does the reduction to a more elemental form of the interaction between Man and Environment. At any rate not all of my picture would come right in this kind of game. I guess this is one of the exceptions. Often I play on the colour contrasts to bring out the human element, while here is the light and the shadows which play the game. This I think is true in just three or four of my shots. I have indeed tried to play a bit with a conversion, but so far my results in the conversions are quite poor, though, and none of the experiments deserves public exposure. I know where the problem sits, that is lack of mastering of the balance of channels, which PSE2 does not allow. Once I'll have more time to put in the process I'll try to improve... changing software.
• Pnina, thanks! The composition is however somewhat playing tricks with the viewer. As a matter of fact I took this from the summit, shooting towards the ridge we had just crossed. So the three people are coming up toward me and not going right toward that snow bump. The illusion works, though, and I regret I did not get to shot someone going back that way to complete the reading of the picture in this way. I am indeed bothered since I see that those three alpinists are walking away from what seems the target.