Boulder Field Sun Up

Alabama Hills near Lone Pine California at sun up.

very ood pic i like it regards

Another nice B&W Leo - great atmosphere

Cheers

Ferg

Leo, this is exceptional! The detail in the foreground rocks is just fantastic and I love the tufts of grass which really pop out and give a certain rhythm to the foreground.

 

The rocks in the mid-field are also beautifully positioned and echo the foreground very nicely. The positioning of those mid-ground rocks behind and right creates a very strong diagonal which is nicely picked up by the sky-light and leads to the very attractive distant mountains rising from the haze below.

 

I don't really know what could be better here. I guess I might burn the bottom left corner just a tad. I do find my eye lingering there more than I might want and a soft burn would kick-start my eye into the grasses and onto the mid and backgrounds.

 

 

This is clearly your very best Alabama Hills photograph; actually, by a long-shot! First, a stunning composition. Second, the post-processing makes this absolutely sing for me. The tonal range is superb; and the tack-sharp details are the bonus. I really like that the Inyo Mountains are back there lurking in the haze and clouds. I wouldn't touch this one jot; it is pure perfection from fore to aft. A legitimate 7/7! Cheers! The Bear

Thank you Gerolamo, Ian, Fergus and Chris for your comments. This is actually a color conversion to BW. The dynamic range here was way beyond one or even two exposures. At first I was going to blend a exposure from the sky with one for the foreground. But after making a sky selection I was plagued with white edge at the intersection which would have been very difficult to deal with especially in the area of the second set of jagged boulders. My solution was to make a three exposure PM3 HDR composite and blend it with my best foreground exposure. In this way, I was able to have the best of two worlds. I am attaching the color version and would like to know which you prefer. Thanks again to all of you for comments and a special thanks to the anonymous rater who finds it necessary to give me a 3/3 on everyone of my images.

The color version:which one?

Well, it ain't even a contest for me. While I like your color version, it is the black and white that hits the ball out of the park. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you have a nasty dust-spot on the horizon of the middleground boulder piles on the right side. Look at this larger, color or B&W, and you'll see it. It certainly wasn't as visible in the B&W. Excellent work, Amigo; but I'm for the black and white, it suits the scene to a T. Cheers! Chris

First, congratulations on creating a HDR blend that doesn't look like an HDR anywhere in the image. Even in the colour. I'm impressed, I haven't been able to do that whenever I try.

 

Second, for me, it is much more of a contest to decide on B&W or colour here. I like how there is a strong separation of the boulder from the rock it is resting upon in the colour version. I miss that with the B&W. I also must say that the blue of the distant hills is just about perfect too. Overall the colour is much prettier.

 

And, that prettiness is exactly why I concluded that the B&W was the better image here. I don't think the prettiness suits the overall tone of the image as I initially saw it. From the B&W, I felt this was a harsh, austere, and raw, landscape. I still feel that way looking at the colour. But, then the soft pretty light of dawn conflicts with the mood of the land itself for me. So, the B&W it is.

"lose" the coloured version. The b&w version: don't change a thing!

Chris said you were a B&W guy! Thanks for your input Ton!