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Comments appreciated! Note that I photoshopped a bit of the branch

on the right out. Don't usually do that, but it was really bothering

me. It originally came into the photo and crossed the trunk to about

the bottom of the frame.

 

Thanks

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Something about this one appeals to me, but I can't quite put my finger on it...

 

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Perfect shot of a cool bird in it's own ecological niche. This has guidebook written all over it.

 

 

Comments appreciated. I cropped this one a bit and have a little

room to move it around, wondering what people think about the

placement of the hawk and surrounding trees.

You have to wonder what this red tail was doing watching these elk.

I wish the bush wasn't on the left, and wish I had a chance to frame

it with the red tail looking into the frame. Other than that, all

comments appreciated.

 

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David, Greg, thanks for the feedback! I don't like the sticks or the bush either, don't have a problem with removing them, just haven't taken the time.

 

Gudmundur, I did try to do some color correction on this. Velvia 100F pushed a stop, close to sunset resulted in some truly ghastly colors. There is a serious green cast on the slide (sky is somewhat green on the slide.) I did my best to get it looking a little more realistic.

 

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Comments from bird/wildlife photographers appreciated!

Comments/criticism from bird and wildlife photographers greatly

appreciated!

 

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Nice. First bald eagle I ever saw launched off a tree, banked right and plucked a fish out of the water. That moment was partly responsible for launching a pretty major interest in raptors. I went to Klamath Wildlife Refuge this past winter, but the bald eagles there pretty much sat around waiting for tundra swans to die...

 

You hit this moment perfectly. Is this full frame or cropped? Composition might improve a bit with a slightly different crop, but a great moment.

 

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Wouldn't change a thing, really nice shot.

 

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Great composition. One of my favorite places, I like that it's not your typical racetrack shot. The contrast between the grandstand and mountains really works.

This is very impressive. Great vision, seeing something not there and then going to the effort to get the shot. Nice work!

 

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Marlene, really nice photo. Dramatic and intense light. I think you might be able to improve on it even more by slightly lightening the mountains on the far right and the foreground just below the horizon on the left. My eye is defintely drawn to the light on the mountains in the center, but the rest of the central third of the photo seems just a bit dark in comparison. Great location and good timing!

Atle, definitely not boring! I'd say it's up there with your best shots, which says a lot.

 

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Greg, just noticed your comment from 3 weeks ago... On this shot I did do a bit more adjusting with photoshop. I'm pretty sure I used 5 stops of ND grads at the scene (but I can never keep track.) I added probaby the equivalent of another 1.5-2 stop hard edge across the horizon in ps. I also tried to bring out a bit more detail in the tree, I believe by creating a selection from the blue channel on the tree and pulling the curves up a bit. Still pretty dark, but that little bit of detail adds some depth.

Think you got the spelling wrong, it's Jobs Peak, not Jobes Peak. Nice shot, though I think the combination of the nd grad and polarizer darkened the sky a bit too much (or maybe it's vignetting from the filter stack?)

Just a thought, if the resolution is high enough, you should try cropping it to just the bottom right quarter of the frame, i.e. just pelican heads, no background.

 

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I've been trying to shoot birds lately and having a tough time, so appreciate a good bird photo. This one feels cropped a little close on the top, but nice photo.

 

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(Hope this commnet doesn't appear twice, first one seems to have disappeared, anyway...)

 

I have the same problems with Velvia, which I used exclusively until just the past two weeks when I started trying to shoot birds. I took a lot of wildflower shots this spring, many of which I dismissed as 'not-a-keeper's because a couple flowers were blurred by a breeze. (Somtimes I'm convinced that there is an amphetmine addiction epidemic running rampant in our wildflower population.) Then I stopped by Galen Rowell's gallery in Bishop and took a close look at many photos I'd seen and admired in the past. Many of them, landscapes like this one, had flowers blurred by a breeeze in the foreground. It made me wonder If I'm not too critical of my own photos. So, for this photo, what is the focus - the stream, the boulders, the mountain, the bright color of the grass - would this shot would suffer too much if a couple of the flowers were blurred by a breeze?

 

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I think if you did a major crop job on this, to just include the bottom climber and the mountains in the background, you'd have a great picture.

Excellent shot, wouldn't change a thing, good job on the stitch.

 

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You can go on a lot of trips to the sierra and wait a long, long time before you see light like this. This would be a welcome addition to any of the famous sierra photographer's porfolios. Congrats on being in the right spot at the right time.

 

It appears to be just slightly crooked, maybe less than a degree rotated counter clockwise. I think you might have a stronger print if you cropped the top 15% or so - reducing the hot white spot at the top left and ending up with more even color and a great panorama. What do you think?

What an unbelievable spot! I've seen lots of terracing, but the variety of colors here is remarkable. Did you know it was there or did you just happen upon it?

 

I agree with Nestor's comments, the haze creates a bit of a contrast problem. You've got a great shot that can be even better with a bit of touching up. Congrats!

 

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Hi, Thanks for the comments. Rasmus, good eye, I agree that the horizon is squeezed to close to the arch. I think I had tunnel vision when I took this, the glowing arch and the washerwoman arch had most of my attention, as well as fighting lens flare from the sun. I'd guess that the arch is lit from below for less than 10 minutes and the landscape changes quickly, probably took a roll of shots from different spots but this one seemed to have the best combination of color and composition. Tough when you can't go back - that's one of the reasons I think that most photographers best photos will probably be from places near where they live.

 

The other thing that bothers me a bit about this shot though is the unlit part of the top of the arch, it seems really heavy, not sure if I should try to crop it out or not.

 

Thanks again,

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I like everything about this shot except for the moon. Cover it up with your thumb, I think it changes the whole mood of the photo and moves the focus from two imposing monoliths standing guard in the ocean to a small dot in the sky.

 

I'm drawn to the moon as a subject as well, although I am yet to get anything I think is decent. In my limited experience, two things that make it harder to get a good photo of the moon are shooting after sunset (overexposure) and using a wide angle lens (too small). Galen Rowell took a lot of wide angle shots with a small moon in the frame and I don't think they should be there either so you're in good company, in my opinion. :-)

 

Thanks for posting.

 

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