Last breath of summer

Gallery: LandscapePosted December 9, 2011154 views4 comments

Another shot from last year, waiting for some winter storms to move in soon so spending more time processing images. Anyways, this was shot after a heavy monsoon storm. The clouds moved so fast that a completely cloud covered sky was soon clear within an hour. It yielded some fine light over one of my favorite locations in the southwest. I wish there had been a little more cloud cover to give the sky more color, but I think having just a few with some pink glow works nicely. Nothing too crazy with the processing and not the best of foregrounds, but I liked the little splash of green from the bush. Comments and critiques appreciated.

Superstition mountains, Arizona

Canon 7d
Canon 17-40mm @17mm
ISO 100
1/2 sec
f/16
3 stop grad ND filter
Tripod

Comments

4 comments

Comment posted by Joel Hazelton on December 9, 2011 at 11:46 PM

I actually think the processing is pretty much right on. The light is also beautiful. I will agree that the foreground/midground doesn't do much for the composition, though... The splash of green is quite nice and placed very well in the comp, and it isn't the typical cholla FG you see from LDSP, but it does seem rather empty.

Registered on August 6, 2008, 194 Posts, 1315 Comments

Comment posted by Michael J Greene, on December 10, 2011 at 1:02 AM

I think your processing is awesome and the emptiness surprisingly doesn't bother me at all. I think you did a nice job here at showcasing the true topography of the range. Nice light too.

Michael

Registered on June 18, 2009, 86 Posts, 2317 Comments

Comment posted by Jack Garrett on December 10, 2011 at 1:14 AM

Beautiful capture...love the sunset color. Is this the mountain that a plane crashed into a couple weeks ago? The pictures showed a mountain similar to this and said it was superstition mountain. It created a huge black area on the rocks.

Registered on November 7, 2007, 41 Posts, 251 Comments

Comment posted by Peter Coskun on December 10, 2011 at 1:25 AM

Thanks Joel. I actually had to tone down the reds in the mountain itself quite a bit. Definitely not the best foreground, but the glow was just too good to pass up a shot. I'm hoping to get up there soon for a nice sunset (and scout for different foregrounds) and some night shooting. Hopefully a storm kicks in again.

Michael- It's amazing how the mountains just lift out of the ground like this. Makes them a very unique location to shoot and definitely the most photogenic area in the greater phoenix area,

Jack- Unfortunately it is. The area the plane had crashed is just behind on the right of the main part of the mountain face. The photos from there are horrid. Still quite a bit of debris from what I understand too.

Registered on October 31, 2011, 170 Posts, 1240 Comments