mtmixon

Wonderful lighting, especially how you manage to capture a hint of red in her lips, which produces a nice balance with the red of the strawberry.  Very sensual.

One of the challenges of visiting the same place every year is finding

new ways to photograph an increasingly familiar location, and still

capture something of its essence. My goals for this photo were to

convey the peaceful quality that accompanies the day's dissolution into

night, and to take advantage of a clearly visible Mt. Rainier (a persistent

presence in the harbor, but not always visible).

Hence my decision to use a cooler filter for the foreground (while

preserving the sun's warm tones on the mountain) and to wait for a

solitary rower to enter the scene.

Feedback is welcome.

Alan - I suspect there are some beautiful spots out by you too. :-)  My wife, who studied in Boston for a few years, insists that I have to see New England in the Fall...that I would be in photographic heaven.  But yes, the Pacific Northwest is a gorgeous place to visit and photograph.

Alex - Thanks for the additional feedback.  I'm curious if the "flatness" you describe is due to the differences in our monitors, as on mine it looks nicely saturated (assuming the lack of saturation is what you define as "flat").  In either case, I've attached a revised version where I've bumped the saturation a little.  Let me know if you think this helps.

Alan - I like your idea of having this in a country brochure. :-) I might look into that.  The larger idea of whether this counts as a landscape because there are people in it (especially a prominent person in the foreground) has always been interesting to me.  I can see why some people would prefer their landscapes to be "unmarred" by people, but there are others who like to see people in them, so long as the people aren't specific (i.e. with recognizable faces) as it allows them to place themselves inside the scene.  Whenever I put people in my landscapes, I try to keep them "generic".  So this guy, as you suggested, is the photographer in all of us, capturing a beautiful scene (which is Sol Duc Falls in the Olympic National Forest in Washington State, by the way).

Boeboe - which tripod / ballhead do you have?

You're right...it isn't as sharp as it could be, but I think much of that is due to the fact I was hand-holding it on a bridge with a fair bit of foot traffic.  But I do have my eye on a few good tripods...just waiting for the right occasion to get one. :-)

Thanks Alex.  Yeah, I actually toned down the highlights quite a bit already, but I suppose a little more would be in order.  Regarding the sharpness, do you mean the sharpness in the water, or in the photo generally?  Almost every photographer I saw at the falls had a tripod...might be time for me to get one that's light enough to take on trails. :-)

Thanks for all of the great comments.

This one was a challenge. The dynamic range was broad, yet I had no

tripod to facilitate multiple exposures. In particular, I wanted to not only

capture the lushness of the scene, but also the scale of the waterfall,

and the best way to do that would be to include a familiar point of

reference, in this case my parents standing at the overlook on the right

(which happened to be in the darker portion of the scene). So I took

many shots, trying to expose for the highlights but not plunge the rest of

the image into too much darkness. This is the best of the series (which

I touched up a bit in LR, using a gradient filter to lighten some of the

darker areas). Feedback and suggestions for improvement welcome.

Thanks for the comments...really appreciate them.  I'm very happy with this photo, as I got it in a place I didn't really expect to find anything.  The nursery was just a block down the road from where we were staying, and I went there out of boredom.  But it's just another reminder that we can find great photos anywhere.

Alex, I see your point about the DOF, but I chose to keep it shallow as I felt that the detail of the garden wasn't as important to the photo as the "feeling" conveyed by the light and the perspective.  Not only did I not want the fairly mundane trees and plants to compete with the statue, but I saw this girl as a daydreamer, sitting in a garden she only half-saw as she was carried away by her thoughts.

I always enjoy photos that convey solitude, and this one does that very well.  It's minimalist but very well balanced, and the colors are simple yet rich. 

The one thing I've gone back and forth on is whether the photo should be cropped a bit more from the right side, so that the house is a little closer to the edge.  My compositional instinct tells me to do that (and would be how I would have shot it), but seeing your version makes me think that perhaps having some room on either side of the house conveys more of the loneliness you intended to capture.

Either way, this is a fantastic image.

As I was standing around and "waiting my turn", I decided to take a

few shots of this photographer getting his shots, since I really liked

the light that was falling at that time. This ended up being the

photo I chose from this series, partly because it contained the best

light (the golden sunlight exited when this photographer left, as if

he took it with him), and partly because I like how the three humans

in this photo are all photographers (the guy in front and the couple

on the bridge). Comments welcome.

Thanks Roger.

Thanks Ruud.

I had been sent to run a few errands after a family dinner party, and returned

to find my son and dad playing in the rapidly fading late-afternoon light. So I

grabbed my camera, popped on my SB-800 for a little fill, and took about 40

shots of them playing, hoping to not only capture a great moment between

them, but also the warm and golden light that surrounded them. This is my

favorite from the series, as I think I achieved both of those aims. Feedback

welcome.

I spent some time wandering around a verdant nursery/garden, which had

these statues of children placed throughout. I liked the vantage of this one,

as if she is looking out on the grounds, reflecting. Comments welcome.

Thanks Stephen.  I've uploaded a revised version, with a bit more clarity and exposure added to the foreground trees.  I hope my adjustments aren't too subtle. :-) 

Thanks for the feedback.  While in general I prefer clouds in the sky for that added bit of drama and texture, I do think that in this case they may not have added much, seeing how little of the frame the sky actually takes up.  But I'm sure I'll go back here one day and will get some glorious cloudy mountainscapes. :-)

I've uploaded a version with a touch more contrast.  Is this the amount you had in mind, Giuseppe?

I did debate about the contrast, as I also wanted to maintain the softness of the foggy scene.  Seeing as I have never applied a consistent color correction to the multiple monitors in my house, I was able to see how my small adjustments rendered on these different monitors.  On a couple, the contrast was too much and marred the softness of the scene.  On others (like the one I use primarily for my edits), the contrast added just a little more "pop" to the photo while preserving its overall dreamy quality.  One more variable in the subjective world of digital photography. :-)

Really beautiful photo.  The layered tones are superb, and you framed it very well.  

I made a few small "seasoning" adjustments in Lightroom, which improve the photo to my eye.  I'd be interested to see if you agree.

The changes I made:

1. Corrected the tilt in the horizon via a crop adjustment.

2. Applied a gentle linear tone curve to bring out a bit more contrast between the trees and the fog.

3. Used a graduated filter along the bottom half to bring out some of the warm colors in the fog.

4. Used another graduated filter along the left side to darken the edges a bit.

5. Applied some Noise reduction to soften the image.

Have a great weekend. :-)

A great minimalist photo.  I'd be tempted to brighten the snail just a bit, though.

Beautiful.  I love how the tree appears to be floating.  

Very happy colors, Gail, and the focus/framing are superb.  I'd be curious to see how this photo would look with a black (or at least darker) frame, as the yellow one competes with the colors in the photo.

When framing this one, I was initially drawn to the blues hues of the

mountains and sky, but then I thought that having the sliver of snow in the

foreground would help balance the photo more. I would be interested to hear

what others think.