marc_dilley1

You have a subtle eye to have seen this. Well done.

I made a comment under my image "Higher Power" that the artist tends to misread how others accept their work. I also consider this one of my more original works. I'm dumfounded that it has flopped on this forum. Again I ask, What am I doing wrong... or missing?

Many thanks to you who have made the effort to comment!

Thank you Tony.

The artist often sees and rates their work quite different than the general public and even their contemporaries. I am frankly surprised this image has not been rated higher and had more comments. I consider it the best B&W I have ever produced. What am I missing?

This was, in a peculiar way, a grab shot. I staked out this spot for at least an hour before sunrise - I liked the foreground and the sweeping view. As the sun rose, things turned to mud, I got bummed, packed up and headed home for breakfast. As I  turned into my street (This hill is 5 minutes away) a sliver of bright orangey magenta appeared. So I did a quick U-turn and got up to the tripod spot in under 10 minutes, in time for this. BTW, the sky portion is shot w/ a very dark ND filter for a 30 second exposure time. I tried it both ways and I liked this streaky look best.

I keep my eye peeled for foamy whirlpools like this one all year 'round. It is maddeningly difficult to find a really good one, and after years of looking, I have never found one anywhere nearly as nice as Hamid's. And of course one must then have the talent to make good use of it. I can't imagine how this scene could be improved upon. It is exciting, inventive and has great depth. Bravo!!

I was trying to match the clouds with the sun, but I agree with you they seem off.

The entire image is in focus.

Do you mean in front of the lake shore, or the lake itself?

Not sure about the tire, but the rest of the image is very creative.

Very nice.

Nicely understated and well composed. Retained muted colors instead of a B&W conversion I suppose was a good choice. I do like the orangey-brown of the branches.

Very compelling image. The B&W is perfect.

Great Tony. Has your trademark craftsmanship.

Gregory,

I agree with the other reviewer who stated that too much processing is evident. What it appears you have done is add a gradient in Camera Raw, move the color temperature slider waay to the blue, move the exposure to the left (darken) and pull the gradient down until it effected the top of the peaks. If you desire to darken the sky, you would have more precise control in Photoshop by using the Selective Color tool, choose blue, and darken the color. You could also choose the tool again, change the mask to black, paint the lake white on the mask, and fiddle with the blue and cyan colors to make the lake color and luminosity agree with the sky... if you wanted.

Fascinating!! A fresh look at the subject!!!

Beautiful use of ND filter on the cloud.

I like how the trees appear to lean back at the MW. The foreground does appear to be quite soft, however. Assuming this is not on purpose, there are a few possibilities for this: Ground was shot at night instead of twilight and the high iso would make it very noisy and thus not sharp. Wind/camera movement during exposure. Blending together of more than one exposure where the trees are not in pin register.

The best vertical forest shot yet.

Great leading lines. The color on the ice bar makes the sale!

I get the feeling that something amazing is about to happen.

Stunning! This has quite a different look to it and it is quite riveting.

A shot of the south slope of one of the really big cascade granite peaks at sunset. A second time exposure of the sky was blended in to get the minor star effect.

Weird lines etched into ice on a frozen lake surface.

A night shot with a very wide lens from the outflow of an unnamed lake in the North Cascades.

Sunrise from just below an unnamed lake in the North Cascades.

C & C welcome, as always.