gdanmitchell

I'll agree that primes can restrict you sometimes, but two other thoughts...

Zooms can be a problem as well, It can be really difficult, if not impossible to zoom with moving subjects like this. If anything, when shooting from a close position like this you might just want to try a wider prime and crop when necessary.

Also, this is arguably as much about "aim" as about the prime. If your shot had been a bit to the left, missing the other player's hand wouldn't have been much of a loss.

Speaking of cropping, I wonder how this would look if you took a bit off the right to get a slightly tighter crop?

Of course, I wouldn't be too serious about the post mortem on a shot like this - it is just plain hard to track such quickly moving subjects! :-)

Too cool! Wonderful shot, and effective composition to boot.

One small nit - I wonder if cropping a bit tighter to eliminate the white cloth on the persons legs might remove one extraneous distraction - not certain about this, but perhaps something to play with?

Congratulations.

Dan

Nice, simple concept, and the birds are well-placed in the frame I think.

On my monitor there are some artifacts around the birds that are a little distracting. I'll bet you could clean this up a bit in PS.

Dan

For a moment this made me think - just a little - of the Diane Arbus photo of a boy with a toy hand grenade. (Though this is a bit less troubling.)

Dan

When life give you lemons, make lemonade... and when Death Valley gives you dust, photograph dust! :-)

I hope it wasn't too bad of a dust storm. I've experienced at least one really bad one there... no fun at all!

Very nice, moody, and atmospheric shot. I like your composition a lot as well, with the centered yellow tree, and the large foreground tree at the left balanced by the dark group of trees at the upper right. I'm sure this will make a wonderful large print.

Dan

(To me the yellow/green toning of the overall image seems a bit too strong, but that's a matter of taste and it may also have something do do with differences between our monitors.)

Nice. A ton of visual interest in this photo.

(And almost a "rule of thirds" tutorial shot! :-)

Dan

If the concept is to juxtapose images of "stop" signs in front of landscapes as a way of suggesting that it might be a good idea to "stop!" and spend a bit of time looking, I like it. The irony of using a stop sign that is regarded as an impediment to faster travel (it IS on a road, after all!) is fun, as is the subtle (unintended or not?) "looking back" orientation of the sign.

No idea if any or all of this was your intention, but that's what I think about when I see this.

Dan

Nice work, especially with the added difficulty of the shaded foreground - wonderful light on the peak in the upper center area.

(Sorta' gets me thinking about prospects for another trip out there this April...)

Dan

Well, the first comment is the simplest one - I like it.

There is a lot to be said for the simple exploration of a color and some lines. I'll be this would make a very nice print.

(I'm not sure what the source of your abstract image is - that's the point, right? - but somehow it gives me a feeling of motion from right to left - obviously the horizontal lines are compatible with that impression, but I think the fact that they separate more on the left margin may have something to do with this.)

Although it may seem like a bizarre comment to some who might read this, your exposures is good. By this I mean that you've kept the green theme going all the way from the darkest areas up to the lightest, where there are not examples of pure white.

Dan

(I know how hard it can be to get any sort of reasonable reaction to an image like this on PN... You can always count on a couple of 3/3 ratings from people who cruise by and think, "It's all green, and it's out of focus!")

That is a very nice, moody photo that captures the feeling of the Pt. Reyes area very well - wonderfully executed.

Dan

I think it is Isosceles Peak - a stunning feature of this high, alpine basin just west of the Sierra crest. (One of my favorite places.)

Dan

A very interesting image - more interesting than one might think at first glance. (I like the reflections of the colored lighting that appear near the far end of the wall on the right.)

I hope you'll return to this spot and continue to work with it. There could be some interesting possibilities to explore with slight changes of camera position, and with different effects (perhaps more clouds or even some slight star trails) in the open sky area at the upper right.

Dan

I understand your description of processing to achieve the original view... :-)

I also use the technique you describe - shooting two (or three or even four) raw frames at different exposures, and then combining them in PS. (Though I don't combine this with the use of the ND grad - it is an either/or thing in my mind.)

One thing that sometimes works in a situation like this is to work separately on the foreground. Take the overall brightness level back down a bit, but adjust (perhaps via curves) to expand the dynamic range there a bit - in effect darkening the darkest areas a bit more than the lighter details. The use a bit of dodging on a few of the highlight details such as the rock in the foreground of the lake, etc. (Alternatively, you could also use a mask and paint out portions of it to allow a bit of a brighter layer to come through from deeper in the stack.

Tricky stuff, I know, and it really is a matter of judgment and preference how far to go with this stuff.

Take care,

Dan

Spectacular scene and nice composition.

Since you posted in the critique forum, I hope you don't mind a critical comment or two.

The original scene apparently contained a very wide dynamic range, with the foreground likely in shadow and the distant peaks obviously in full sun. You have made - as I would have - some adjustments to compensate. I'm not certain whether you used a ND grad filter or did this in post-pro. (I suspect that latter.)

These are standard and pretty much required techniques with a scene like this, and it is always difficult to know how far to go in modifying the image so that it corresponds with what you saw rather than what the camera captured. (To me, and I suspect to you, the former is more significant than the latter.)

In this case, my feeling is that the processing could have been a bit more subtle. Here are a few things that I notice: On the talus slope above the lake to the right side of the frame there is a feathered border that seems too disjunct for me - the difference between the shaded foliage below the further sunlit slop and the talus slope seems too great. The foreground water also seems unnaturally light - one cue to the viewer is that the reflection of the sky is much lighter than the sky itself; the same holds true for the reflection of the peaks.

From doing this sort of adjustment on my landscapes - a lot! - I have to say that I recognize just how hard and how subjective this process is. In general, I wonder if it might be possible to tone down the foreground stuff a bit without losing the wonderful details (submerged rocks and sticks, moss on the "rock island," texture of talus rocks) that you have captured.

Take care,

Dan

Hi:

Very interesting atmosphere and colors. One possibility that occurs to me would be a _horizontal_ crop including more or less the middle half of the image - from just below the rocks to just above the lighthouse tower.

Dan

I agree with the previous comment about the off-center composition. The obvious thing would have been to center the columns and stairs - I'm afraid I would likely have done that.. :-)

Placing the camera position in line with the rightmost column puts stairs and light behind the figure rather than the wall. It also lets you include that arch in the wall on the left, thus extending the arch motif a bit.

Very nice.

Dan

Lovely Sierra conditions, especially with those spectacular clouds. I'm so there!

Dan

This is a very wonderful composition - not only in terms of the curves of the lights, the poles, the benches and the sidewalk, but also the placement and relative tonal levels of the background buildings. Nicely done on a technical and aesthetic basis.

The toning works well with this image also.

Dan