black & white Garden of the Gods III

This is a beautifully strange place with it's outcrops of jagged rock

formations. It was early morning with the rising sun spraying it's

light over the formations. This is a very high contrast situation and

one must be careful to maintain adequate shadow detail while holding

the highlights in range of your film . This is especially true if

your are using a filter which I did; a medium yellow to darken the sky

but it also dropped my shadows.I started with a levels adjustments so

as to only contain the working detail. Curves layers for each section

that needed its own tweaking and some gradient layers to darken and

direct the lighting. I wanted that feeling of the bright light

produced by the rising sun in the early morning.One final overall

curves adjustment layer allowed me to tweak the overall feeling of the

image. I finished with an Ektalure cream tone to add some of the

yellow of the rising sun.Your comments are welcome.

Beautiful comp and the quality of light is sublime. The only element that distracts me is the upper left hand quadrant in which the texture of clouds is blown out; Yes, to get the rich contrast you need to pop the contrast but as a consequence the luminance of the clouds tend to overpower the image. Yet it is a wonderful image and quite Anselish......

Good eye Todd; I didn't double check the entire image after sharpening and reduction which does increase the contrast. The original had better control in the highlights of the clouds. But since I would have to pull out of this critique and rewrite my comments I'm going to let it slide. But you are definitely correct. Thanks for your comments.

I like the composition and the textures. It is an amazing structure. Nicely done. Dan

Rather than repost and lose your comments I have posted this corrected image with better highlight control in the white clouds. Next time I'll check the image better before posting.

Wonderful image! - Sean

It looks like the one with the clouds tone down has also a little more detail in the shadows. But i'm not sure.

But al of this is a just a minor thought. The whole of the image is just a very great mood and use of light.

Regards.

Stunningly cool shot, Leo! Excellent composition and the details are just superb. I love the light and the range of tones you've teased out of this. Excellent work, my friend. A 7/6 anonymously. (Hey, how's the hand coming along?) Cheers! Chris

My hand is 95% healed; just some missing fingernails and some loss of feeling.I finished my wood working job and my new computer is up and running. Thanks for asking Chris!

Good eye, yes I added a little more shadow detail. I find when I sharpen, reduced, tone and make an image a jpeg it changes considerably.Do you guys find this to be true?

Wonderful!!! Congratulation Leo.

Your repost is excellent.

WOW. Perfect lighting on an interesting subject. Very well done.

Jim

Magnificent. Almost prehistoric in character.

 

Cheers!

Leo, I once lived within walking distance of the "Garden." And this is the best b&w treatment of that place I've seen in years. You saw beyond the captivating color and revealed the remarkable contours. Fine shot!

Leo.... wow!! is the word... I have many shots from this place and I live very close but you have done a better job of capturing this place. Beautiful details ...your exposure is right on. In my experience because of the high contrast it is a very hard subject to shoot... your skills are very clear here...great job!! 7/7 regards, Rajeev.

Thank you all for your kind comments, it is indeed a pleasure to share my images with you all. Thanks again for your encouraging comments!

wonderful 7/7

Exceptional image, bravo!

Hello Leo

 

Your work is quite easy to be recognized (even from a small thumbnail) - which is a very good point by the way :) It is indeed quite Anselish, as you seem to like high contrast scenes. I like it as well and your technique works wonders, however - you need to be aware that it looks really nice when seen on a properly calibrated screen. Such images with a very thin line in terms of keeping some details both in the highlights and shadows parts are really hard to be presented to a wide internet publicity, where everyone has a different screen and the majority of them are completely uncalibrated.

 

By the way - today, with an era of HDR technique such scenes are very easy to be recorded. All you need to do is to take a bracketed sequence of shots and merge them together to create a final image. This is however, the hardest part - and this is the part when you can distinguish a real artistic shot from a bunch of mediocre ones flooding this site and many others.

 

I really like your work Leo, so keep some new photos coming.

 

Best regards from Scotland :)

 

Piotr

Nice composition and amazing shadow detail. Your landscapes are stunning ! Thank you for sharing !

Leo, Wow! Another of the photographs that is a joy to look at and study. I can't wait to sit down with you and Chris and really get into our photography. And Leo, this is art with a capital A! Fantastic job...RAY

Classique et magnifique ...!!!

A truly outstanding piece of work Leo - great lead in ,good tones and good sharpness.What a place , I've heard about this place before and seen afew pics but nothing of the quality here. A future place to visit I think!

Regards

Ferg

Beautiful tones, beautiful print. A little more breathing room above the peak would make the composition perfect.