Water Spirits (+rework)

I like the blue tones and silky water motion Phil. Very ethereal/

I like the blue tones too. Very nice feel and mood you captured here, Phil. I really enjoy looking at this. The misty mood is wonderful!

Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, WI

The misty water treatment really suits the surreal blue tones and isolated-looking location.

Man this is nice! I love the mood, color, co,position and water treatment!! A real feast for the eyes and soul Phil.

Love those blues! Seems fitting for a square crop.

Phil, you definitely nailed the exposure here- the water has a luxurious texture. The twilight blues really emphasize the watery subject. I do wonder how this would look if you could give a little color contrast by removing some of the blue out of the brightest highlights. Don't bump the highlights, just tone down the blues just a bit. That would potentially give a great image even more depth. It might not work, but it's the only constructive critique I can think of for this beautiful image.

I like the mood and the texture in the water. The spacing of the boulders works nicely too. There is a lot more going on here than what I initially thought in the thumbnail. Excellent processing and composition.

Great comp for this beach! I'm suprised at how much light/how bright it is for so long after sunset. This is what we get more often thas not up here, cloudy colorless sunsets. But I think this looks just right for the conditions. The rock placement, and the dynamic created by your shutter speed works real nice.

Chris

Phil,

Hey, I was just at Pierce Point Ranch on Sunday - when were you there? Windy as all heck over there.

I really like the mood and the sense of the "calm before the storm" I get from this image. Gotta say though that the blues are a bit much for me. The only reason I say that is because it looks like you stuck a blue filter on the lens, or simply did a global adjustment, WB or whatever that gave everything the same blue tone. Hope that makes sense and of course just one man's opinion.

Lon

Alright, here's a rework based on the comments from Mike and Lon. I desaturated the image slightly and then selectively desaturated the highlights a fair amount more to try to enhance the color contrast. I'm not sure the end result is ideal and it may require some more tinkering . . . this was a bit of a quick rework.

Just to comment on the blues and saturation, I had expected a couple of comments along the lines of what Lon said though I was relatively satisfied with it myself. In post-processing I actually did relatively little to create the blue tone and level of saturation. In Lightroom I left the WB alone, boosted Vibrance to 15 (generally a pretty mild adjustment in my view), and shifted the hue of the blues toward a cooler tone. In CS4 I then did some contrast adjustments using luminosity masks, always in the luminosity mode to avoid tweaking the color, and a bit of dodging and burning. And of course, a crop to 4x5.

The bottom line is that the color is, I think, largely the product of the twilight hour and perhaps the long exposure, which tends to saturate colors a bit in my experience. But I'm striving for something that feels natural to folks, so I greatly appreciate your candid comments about the blues.

Lastly, Lon, this was taken on April 1. I'm hoping to return this coming Monday for a brief visit to McClure's Beach in the morning, as there's one particular scene that I want to capture with a low tide and morning light. We'll see how it goes . . .

Phil, very nice capture here. The mood and colors really make the scene. Well done.