The Colony

This has an almost end of the world, alien feel to it. It is as though an army of sea dwelling alien creatures are coming ashore. Good use of the grad filter, and I'm glad your 5DII came back to life just in time!

Oh, man...this is the best seascape I've seen in awhile. There is something about the many lines and curves that makes the scene especially engaging. Phenomenal work!

WOW. EPIC. I'm trying to critique this Kah but it's just not happening. Fantastic image!

Kah,
Good timing on the 5D recovery. What a fantastic sunrise. The seaweed adds a surreal feel to the image. Best Regards.

Outstanding image Kah. The seaweed in the foreground and those intense sunrise colors are really incredible. Ben's thought of an advancing alien army is sort of what struck me as well. Glad to hear your camera 'sprang back to life'. Sort of a 'camera, heal thyself' moment and a great birthday present.

If i put aside my personal bias against long exposures, this extremely cool! The comp is perfect, great strong subject matter and good conditions. The only thing id be concerned about is the top of the sky--looks a bit odd, almost grayish when i expect it to be white (im assuming those are high clouds up there) Im sure youll get differning opinions, but personally i wouldn't worry about blowing the exposure--if it was bright up there, let it be bright. Or, just crop tot he top of the red cause that works just as well IMO.
EDIT: yeah in the larger version its obvious those are cirrocumulus clouds up thgere--well you definitely want them to be brighter than the water! (or crop)

Hello Kah Kit,

the story of birthday speaks much on this photography She is really terrific. I lost my words

Kah Kit,

This is a beautiful and fascinating seascape. I can see why this sits near the top of your favorites from the trip to NZ. I'm really impressed with the near/far sharpness; the detail in the kelp farm, carried through the mid ground plants and on to the headland and "atomic" sky.

Not really a nit, so much as a comment about the light balance between the foreground and the background. I just posted a similar comment on another post, but IMHO, considering the sun is now below the horizon, to me it just seems reasonable that the foreground wouldn't be lighter than the sky. I know I'm getting a bit picky, but personally I feel that the coastline on the left and the distant ocean onthe right should be a bit brighter, and basically have a better balance of the light between the foreground, mid and background. Don't get me wrong, it actually doesn't change my impression of this image, I'm just making a general comment. Hope that makes sense and it's just one person's opinion, which you can easily disregard!

Lon

Wow, this has just blown me away. Fantastic.

Can't go to bed without commenting on this one. What a terrific foreground Kah. And then the sky. Speechless. A birthday present like no other. Great work.

Some interesting suggestions and points. Over the past year I've made a move towards what 'looks right' rather than what is accurate. For instance to be truly accurate, I should allow the headland to be just about silhouetted against the sunrise behind. So processing a shot like this requires a bit of artistic licence especially regarding lightness levels around the scene, balancing sky, foreground, midground, water and rock. The two things I set in my mind first were the seaweed and sky. The foreground had to be light enough to appreciate the details and I wanted it to stand out. The sky had to be dark enough to hold the intense colours. In this case, I just accepted that the result would not be a true representation of the natural sky to ground balance of exposure. I see Lon's point about the midground darkness. This darkness on the left I like - it serves to differentiate between the masses of seaweed in midground and the foreground. The ocean on the right, I probably will try to even out.
Thanks for the feedback.

Kah, this is one you click open and go, "what the *#*#**??!!" At least I did. Amazing image.

That is an awesome happy birthday shot! The shapes and colors of the foreground are very unique and create a dynamic lead in to a fantastic sky!

Kah,

Sometimes it's the simple things in life, that are the best presents and this one wasn't purchased it was "given". The image does your birthday proud. The image does seem a little halved by the darker middle ground the Rlfg has incredible detail and interest that my eye keeps going back there. There's some balance lacking for me but that's not always a "bad" attribute in an image.

Paul

Great shot, love the sunrise colors in this, the seaweed does make it look alien,

This is a very impressive image Kah. I can't say it's one of my favorites from you, but it certainly does have quite the "wow" factor. One thing that is a little puzzling to me is the amount of blue being reflected in the kelp beds. I see that color in the water, but not in the sky or is just the water on the kelp? It is hard to tell with the slow shutter speed. Anyways, this is certainly an attention getter - what aperture did you use to capture the razor sharp fg with? Thanks for sharing.

Michael

What an awesome pile of seaweed! The light's quite nice too I can see why you think this is in the cream of the crop, I agree! Just wish the LRC didn't look like it was slightly OOF.

AWESOME shot, Kah Kit. in fact the word apocalyptic comes to my mind with that sky and all those alien looking kelp creatures...

Very mysterious and moody. You are one of the best at Seascapes. Excellent work Kah Kit.

Great image and great story. Happy belated!

Hey Kah,
What an impressive....almost alien landscape! This one just has a great flow of lines and light!

this is different Kah !!

amazing comp & colors

well done

Kind of an otherworldly surreal shot. The dark mid-level seems to try to block my eye from going up from the kelp to that incredible sky. Great story about the camera, and yes I would be grateful for a present like this on my birthday!

Love the draped seaweed the kelp is like some huge suffocating organism sort of creepy but very compelling. Oddly I find the power of the spectacular sunset almost at odds with the creepy vegetation as if it belonged to another picture. I'm amazed that little of the sunset colour was picked up in the surf. Great image though.

Fantastic colored sky Kah Kit. Love the low perspective and the nice sweeping motion in the water

great foreground and so much to take in.. terrific colors also great work all around and a nice find

Powerful work
once I saw the thumbnail I realized it is yours
you have a special effects on your work

Happy birthday indeed! Great colors in the sky but the inclusion of the foreground kelp beds knocks this one out of the park. Love it.

Its as if a giant pupil (shape of the clouds) is looking down onto the scene. Lovely capture and nice process.

Ian

Happy Birthday Kah!

For sure this is a masterclass shot, fantastic composition and appealing colors.
If I have to find a nit I could say that the foreground/background light balancing see the foreground a little bit too clear compared with the background but this is a secondary issue. Congrats!

Kah Kit looks like I'm going to have to be the one that actually uses the critique process as meant to be. I find it way to easy to jump on the bandwagon and just exploit the eye candy qualities of this image.
The quality of light and experience of seeing this in person must have been wonderful. You have very good way and eye for finding and capturing wonderful imagery. Having said that, the kelp in the lower right hand corner that takes up 25% of the shot has a powerful way of pulling my eye off the image as opposed to a foreground that leads me into the image. To me it is the highlight of the shot and I keep bringing my eyes to it then they just go to the edge and fall off. I find the water to be of an odd color maybe due to the longer exposure but odd non the less. The composition of the upper half of the image I like very much, that is were one gets led into the frame. Now the sky, it is way over done in color and contrast to me. But having said that, in your description you called it an atomic sunrise. With that in mind and with a sense of ethereal qualities it works, but only in that regard. So if that is your intention you done well.

Happy belated Birthday!

Thanks for your detailed critique Brad. I agree with you about the right lower corner to a point - yes the eye can certainly get drawn there and off the edge. The way I composed this was to get different levels or layers of seaweed so that the whole 'colony' didn't just become one big mess. Waiting for a large wave to flow through the foreground also helped with this separation. I say to a point because I hope that there are enough other visual cues for the eye to be led into the image rather than to the right. As for the sunrise I think it depicts the conditions fairly truthfully, it is certainly close to what I felt I witnessed. I saw a lot of awesome light and this one wouldn't even come close to the most atomic of sunrises on the trip.

wow,, outstanding