Poipu Sunrise

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Awesome colors Doug. I like being able to see down into the water. Nice placement of those rocks. Great job.

I love the color highlights within the clouds - awesome comp too.

Looks good Doug, I might tone down the yellows in the sky just a bit though. I love the detail and placement of those "lava" rocks in the FG

Beautiful shot Doug. Definitely looks like Kauai. I like how you captured the under water details of the foreground pool. Blending looks very good.

This is really pretty Doug. I like this comp and it is really cool seeing down into the water. The clouds are awesome. I think I would tone the yellow down a bit too, as Zack mentioned. The reflections are also very nice.

Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, WI.

Ok, I'll be the meanie, it's a dirty job but someone's got to do it. I'm guessing a superbly crafted shot like this, with all these intense but very believable colors, would have about 30+ comments by now if this was a strong comp, so let me take a stab at why i don't think it's connecting with a larger audience:
The way i see it, this is two seperate shots with not enough connecting the two subjects. Part of that is my aversion to fg rocks, but even putting aside my bias, just do a simple 50/50 crop of the top and bottom here. The bottom is an awesome subject, those stark lava rocks are super cool, and i think if you had someohow manged to get a shot of just the rocks with some more of that color from the sunset mixing into the lower half of the shot, it would have been a killer shot. Likewise, i think the top could have stood on its own as a killer shot, if you could have tamed some of the tough contrast in the fg surf. It might not have even been an issue at full scale--it just looks at this size like compression is turning those surf contrasts into black and yellow patches, and the defintion is lost. Those waves in the bg look fantastic, of course at this size its tough to see them, but im betting a comp with 2/3 sky and 1/3 water would look amazing. Sooo, in short--i just think you bit off too much here--believe me i understand the temptation--but less is almost always more, as im sure you know!

Thanks folks. Thanks Stan, for the thoughtful critique - you know I can take it!

Gorgeous color, Doug and remarkable clarity of the foreground water. Beautiful work.

Here's a version with the yellow toned down a little - much more and it started to look 'muddy'. It's pretty hard to see a difference without the 2 side by side

Ok, Stan - here's on the lines of your crop suggestion. Honestly, it doesn't excite me much, and I find the pennisula rather obtrusive. If I had been motivated to wade out to that area, got low and used a wide angle to really emphasize the leading lines of the shore breaks, that would have been something!

Amazing colours!

Hey, water is meant to be waded out into...

One of my very favorite places on earth, and this scene is why. Sunrises and sunsets like this are common to my experiences there. This is as grand as any I have ever seen there. Outstanding shot!