Government Shutdown + repost

A real purty viewpoint, Stan! Great colors, too.
I think you could crop about an inch from the left to lose that real bright patch of snow and more of the bright skies.

Stan, you show us an incredibly natural look of this scenery, I feel like breathing the fresh air!

Peter

very pretty. The overall scene is nice, but what I love is the brown garsss against the white snow!

I find the blues a bit strong but they interact so nicely with the warm grass, so maybe it's a good thing after all. The comp is classy as always as are the details. What a place to rest and enjoy.

Stan, What a beautiful place. I can see why you would like a couple more snows. The light here is just wonderful! The lit up golden grass looks great with the shadowed snow. A fantastic look to me. another hmmmmm...I think my head might be starting to spin a bit.

Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, WI

Beautiful scene! I like the golden grass with sun rays. Agree w/other comment on strong blues...but, it gives a chilly mood for late in the day and when sky leans on the blue hues. Comp is nicely balanced.

You made that foreground snow and grasses look gorgeous! Great view from up there and I'm sorry, but Spring can stay as long as I care.

Beautiful light on the foreground grasses Stan. The mix of warm and cool cools works well for me. Looks like a great place to spend a government shut down. I prefer winter over spring...... spring is OK and better than summer but not as good as autumn.

Pretty, Stan. I like the light and the golden plants highlighting the frame. Personal preference but the cyan seems a bit on the strong side to me.

Thanks folks! I warmed this up 1000+ degrees from AWB, but i did leave it on the blue side for the reasons mentioned--to contrast with the warmer colors here. I think the cyan is partly a result of the srgb conversion--ill probably pull back on that a bit for web presentation.

Pretty nice, Stan. I agree with John about the crop. Also, working on the blues/cyans in the foreground are good idea, in my opinion. I lke the textures in the FG snow and grasses.

--P

Gorgeous scenic indeed, with lots of interesting FG textures to look at. How you have chosen to compose this really pulls the eye around the distant range of mountains and leaves the rest to the imagination... I like it. I agree with a previous comment suggesting to pull darken the far left sky, possibly even warm it up a bit. Nice work Stan.

Very nice Stan, I might try to bring some more detail back into the sky at the far left, other than that it looks like a great place to spend a day! The warm/cool tones work well together.

With winter views like this I would not mind the winter to continue. Love the light in the fg.

ok--here it it with way less cyan, and i darkened the bright sky, kept it uncropped for now. better?

Stan, before I even scrolled down I was going to suggest a change to the bright sky in the corner. Definitely not a deal breaker for me on this scene but I do like the repost much better. The light breaking through in the FG is also a nice added element here. I personally don't think it needs any cropping.

plz send a print 60*60 for my room

wonderful indeed

It's on the way, Hamed--so is the bill for $60,000 (hey, if its ok for Peter Lik...)

Oh for the glow of morning light on golden grasses. If another two feet melts I might be able to see them again. I'm sooo ready for spring but you've made winter look so beautiful here I'm ashamed to admit it. I love the contrast between the warm and cool notes and the lovely light. very nice

The warming of the repost is nice, imo. I like the light streaking across the foreground to make the golden grass stand out against the cooler snow

Hey Stan, the repost is an improvement. I'm wishing for a little more space on the top. On this monitor there also appears to be a dark band along the trees on the left. Apart from those, I like this, especially the variety of textures in this image.

Hi Stan,
Majestic blues I actually like the first version better. It's a wonderful snowscape I really like the touches of light on the scene.

Hi Stan,

I am going to be upfront and I talk about several technical issues I see with this image. First off, your blending could be improved. Take a look at the ridge line of trees on the left hand side of the image - there's a black line at the top. Second, you have a couple distracting elements on the right hand side of the frame. The tip of the tree running off the frame on the top is very distracting to me, plus it looks like it has some haloing around it. Also, the branches protruding in from the right hand side in the foreground are distracting as well.

I recommend a slight crop on the right and then clone out the additional branches in the foreground. (If you believe in that sort of thing, I know some folks won't do it). The blending speaks for itself and personally I like the original colors better. The cyan reduction gives the image a garish feeling - maybe something half way in the middle would be a good compromise. I also like the darkening of the sky on the left. Overall, it is a pretty shot - just not up to your usual standards of presentation on this forum.

Michael

Thanks for the comments Michael. Ill take another look and see if i can do anything with those suggestions. The branches etc on the rhs were basically unavoidable unless i want to crop out the sunlit grasses which were the main focus of the shot. I know the 'dark line' on the ridge top looks like a blending issue--but actually it isn't. In fact, i did zero blending here (i only took down the bright portion of the sky above --could have used a single exposure for the entire shot) It's an illusion caused by the lack of snow on the trees on the ridge--the wind blew them clean, while below its snow covered. Here's a 200% crop that shows that a bit more clearly.
I suppose it might help if i brought down the snow brightness a bit (??) but the dark values are identical from top to bottom.

Your welcome Stan and wow that's crazy. I stand corrected. I don't think I have ever consciously noticed that phenomenon before and it sure is cool. Now that I see it up close, the shadows are looking a bit on the cyan side, once again it comes down to web presentation vs print. I think for the web I'd leave it cyan heavy...different story for print though.....

Michael