Faces of the dutchman

Gallery: LandscapePosted February 29, 2012283 views6 comments

Today I went out to see how the wildflowers were looking at lost dutchman state park. Since I was last there about two weeks ago, the flowers have doubled. However they are not like carpets in previous years but there is some variety and those who are going to attend the superstition event on the 10th will not have to fight for space to photography any flowers. Though, the flowers are mainly on one section of the trail system and fortunately in front of the best view of the mountains (IMO). Anyways, as there were no clouds, I decided to play with my 70-200 and began to focus on the cliffs and spires of the superstition mountains. After looking at a few of them on the LCD screen, I was convinced that I was being watched. I could make out so many faces in the rocks it was almost frightening. And to hear a healthy pack of coyotes howl at a VERY close distance come out of nowhere, the scene became even more mysterious to me. It's something different from me. The contrasting patterns, lines, and shapes are easily overlooked by how massive and majestic these mountains are. Comments and critiques appreciated. (p.s. this is probably suffering from some web compression, I apologize in advance for this)

Canon 7d
Canon 70-200f4 @200mm
f/9
ISO100
1/2 sec
Tripod

Comments

6 comments

Comment posted by Gary Reed on February 29, 2012 at 10:19 AM

Uncanny, I can see at least 8 clear faces... Funny how the mind makes sense of chaos.

Registered on September 19, 2009, 198 Posts, 1074 Comments

Comment posted by Bill Chambers on February 29, 2012 at 3:38 PM

Pretty shot Peter. When I lived in west Texas I remember seeing rock faces like this and falling in love with them, and it's funny that Gary mentioned finding faces in them because that's so true. Nice image, but for my taste I would like to see the contrast increased a bit.

Registered on April 10, 2005, 753 Posts, 21216 Comments

Comment posted by Michael J Greene, on February 29, 2012 at 4:10 PM

This looks really good on my monitor Peter. I really like it. Maybe darken the LLC a bit. Excellent work, very creative.

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

Comment posted by Peter Coskun on February 29, 2012 at 5:10 PM

Thank you Gary, Bill, and Michael.

Bill- I've been playing with the contrast on this, but it is quite difficult to find just the "right" balance. This was taken after sunset, so the colors were much more subtle.

Michael- I can see some darkening in that corner. Just want to still have the detail of the bushes and not make them completely dark.

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

Comment posted by Tony Kuyper on February 29, 2012 at 9:14 PM

The perspective here is confusing . . . but I tend to like that in an image. Feels sort of aerial, but hard to say. While I see the faces, I have a hard time settling down and just enjoying the image.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 364 Posts, 22328 Comments

Comment posted by Peter Coskun on February 29, 2012 at 10:55 PM

Tony- It's not the typical perspective of these mountains, I actually shot this from the parking lot just before packing everything into the car. It was more of an experimental shot to get me out of the wide range a bit. There is a lot to look at in this and could keep the eyes moving all over. I haven't seen images like this from here, so I figured I'd try and do something new from here.

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