"Face Off" Cody River, Wyoming

My subject hid in the thicket. I knew he would make a nice silhouette

against the sun rising, so I rustled the small trees opposite him to

move him on to the riverbed. Thanks for your observations.

I see that your image was bitten by the anonymous 3 bug. IMO giving this shot a 3 means that you have zero connection to nature. It is well done, Mark. I feel the coldness of the river, the uplifting power in those beams of light, and the the way the moose and mountains come together to connect it all. Too bad about the blown clouds...an NDG was needed here.

Hi Mark

 

From what I read in your introduction here I take it you are a smart guy. How did you know you would't scare it off?

 

Anyway, you have bagged a killer shot. with powerful visual elements I like very much. Although two sillhouetting triangles on both sides are very heavy compositionally and instantly grab attention, the visual importance is gradually transferred to the standing motif near the center. The emphasis on the motif is through shape and position ( near the center of the frame, though not dead center ), and I should say you were lucky for that, almost as lucky as its looking away from the camera toward the bright sky ( or just the opposite, it doesn't matter since there are no details ). The shining surface of the river provides a nice 'resting area' adjecent to the motif pronouncing its shape which could otherwise be consumed by your metering on the sky and underexposing the fore and midground. The sun rays filtering throught the clouds have painted striking diagonal lies that reach the motif. The diagonality transferres the visual importance to the lit expanse of the jagged-edge mountain in the distance. The horizontal profile of which is framed between the diagonal profile of the dark triangles on the left and right producing a harmonic view. The sky is a little overexposed, but I also understand that you have pulled off a very tricky situation. underexposing EV in this condition could have thrown more of the details around the motif into darkness. What I don't like so much is the greenish highlights in the clouds making the sky look like a scene out of sci-fi

movies. In brief, your shot is very inspiring.

Beautiful :-)

Thanks Gordon, Arash and Tiffany!! This was taken years ago with Kodachrome 25 ASA. This was also before ND Grad filters. I did not want to take chances at Exposure by changing ASA, so I instead went with a longer exposure. The moose was looking square at me making sure I did not move in because he was with a cow. He remained very still during a 2 second exposure. What resulted was three bracketed images that were not too useful. With the foreground correctly exposed, the sky was a complete wash. With the sky close, the foreground was rendered very dark. I had one exposure in between that was fair. I recently scanned all three, combined in PS to bring it all together. Still couldn't completely save the sky however.

this is one strong photo.

i think the sky is greenish because of PS, try to use photomatix for hdr.

 

kikki