christiankiely

Nicely done... as stated above, some sky would be nice, perhaps an ND Grad would help. If I may ask, what direction are you facing? what time of day is it? also, which lens did you use? Thanks.

Too bad it was a cloudy day... I may go back up on a sunny day for

this shot w/ a black sky.

 

Comments?

Nice job... I am assuming this is from the Rolling Thunder tribute?

 

PS what is in front of the marine's foot? just curious...

If you are going to Monument Valley and want to catch a sunset on the Totem Pole, you need to hire a Navajo guide to get the backcountry. Allow 1.5 - 2hrs to get to this point giving yourself time to stop for some photos.

 

Get all the photos you want BEFORE you come here, as you leave it will be getting quite dark.

 

This photo was taken on May-24-03, the azimuth of the sun (E of N) at sunset was about 288. (http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/AltAz.html - use Kayenta, AZ as the place name). The real problem was that this was not the real sunset... that shadow in the foreground up and to the base of the monument is from Rain God Mesa (or Thunderbird Mesa). These are massive monoliths a few thousand feet high. So, when you look and see what time sunset is in the area, take that into account, you have to be much earlier than the sunset time to catch the light in this area.

 

If you have a really good map, which I don't, you could probably find a time of year that the sun would "shoot the gap" into this area from between the two large Mesas... I think that would be possible, but I am not 100% sure. I am going to look into that... you'd need to find the angle that light can pass thru the two Mesas and then the time of year where/if that occurs at sunset (using the link above).

 

"Next time" (hopefully) I will take a guide for a sunrise trip also. We were told that in order to catch the sunrise at this point, you would need to leave the observation area 45 mins - 1hr prior to sunrise. And then I would high-tail it over to Submarine Rock for the "window" shot (I can't remember the name of it). That shot is useless in the evening, unfortunately I have several bracketed photos to prove it!

 

PS after further review of an online topo map, it is quite possible that the shadow was coming from much farther West possibly from an Southern offshoot of the Mitchell Mesa, I don't think it was clouds, but anything is possible... the sun angle between Rain God & Thunderbird Mesa in order to hit the Totem Pole is right about 285... so, if it were possible I guess I would have seen it.

Thanks... I'd love to take a lot of credit for it, but this is one of those moments where you look back on a roll of film shot years ago and you actually find one image that you like! This was purely point-and-shoot, but like they say, even auto-everything will get it right every once in a while...

 

not to mention that this was handheld... the dark upper left corner is distracting to me though...

I tend to prefer the other image you linked to, it gave me a sense of scale and scope. This photo looked very flattened and I could seem to tell that it was taken with a telephoto, but I was missing some visual clues to how far away you really were.

I find the crop a bit distracting; the fact that her head is cut off. I will let those who are really into B&W comment on the technicals, that's not my area...

I really like the bird's "expression", if you could call it that... I think it adds a lot to the photo

 

Technically I like the photo too, but I am curious if you increased the exposure just a little bit if it would render the body as white. If you metered off the body of the bird I think the tendency would be for it to be rendered grayish... but lighting could do that too I guess.

I took this photo years ago and I'm finally getting around to

scanning and editting it. Anyway, I think that I found a crop and

format that I like... of course when the photo was originally take

the subjects were dead-center of the photo (point-and-shoot).

 

FYI This photo was taken at about 6am just a few miles inside the

Gardner Gate of Yellowstone National Park.

I think an ND Grad would help get some definition back into the foreground.

Nice. You might touch up the flare w/ PS... I also wonder if you played w/ the levels a bit if the "god beams" would be a bit more pronounced.

Perhaps an ND Grad upside down? But I think the issue is that you have a bright foreground and the sky to deal with. No matter how you use an ND grad you will still have an issue with one of them.