Dogwood Galore +2rp

I find the mixed lighting here fascinating, with the sunlit blooms up top, and the shaded blooms hanging below. It adds a ton of interest to the scene, at least for me. I like it! As for the color, I know exactly what you mean. The saturation looks spot on to me, and as for the color, I'd have to put a lot more thought into it. Right off the bat, I think it appears natural. It makes sense that it is very grey-blue, because of the shadows, and there's a very, very slight hint of green throughout, at least on my monitor. So I'm thinking it's all good, but of course I struggle with WB and colors in post-processing, so I'll stop here and let someone else take this on!

Always enjoy your images...

A beautiful image and composition. Well worth your time waiting for conditions. I have no qualms with the color/saturation of the water - looks very natural to me. If I'm trying really hard to think of a suggestion, I might bump up the lights/highlights in the blossoms just a little to add a touch more contrast. A very graceful scene and capture!

Good Lord! This is a phenomenal photo Lon. The light hitting those blossoms makes them look like they are lit from the inside with individual little lamps. Well worth the wait for sure! Probably one of the best "dogwood over the water" photos I have ever seen. I think the water color looks good, and since I was not there with you, I am myself recalling what the color is from my own visits, but it looks good.

Finally, is this the tree that west of the Pohono bridge about half way to the Hwy 140/120 split? I have tried photographing this tree with out nearly as much success.

Thanks guys! Actually this tree is east of Pahono and just before the Bridal Veil/41 turn off. You know the spot, we were there last fall where we spoke with William Neill and went down on the "beach," you sat and changed film. Well, this dogwood hangs right over the beach, but in the spring of course that whole area is under water. Thanks for your comment, glad you like this one!

Lon

Wow, Lon, I just spent a long time enjoying the large version, and I know I'll go back for more looks. I don't know if scenes somewhat like this are a dime a dozen, but I do know this is better than most, and a lot better than my dismal attempts to capture plants hanging over streams (what is 0 wind? ). In addition to the "right" shutter speed for the water, and motionless subject, what really grabs me about this one is that kiss of bright light on some of the flowers. That always grabs me, whether it lights up treetops or tiny flowers.

As far as the color and saturation goes, I agree 100% with what you said. Lenses, film and sensors are just mechanical approximations of whatever "reality" sticks in our minds. Especially in dim light, cameras capture more color than our eyes do, and it's very tempting to accept the eye-popping camera images as reality. The water I see in your processing seems real to me, even though I was not there. I also have to say that your shutter speed helps with that sense of reality. Neither super-fast "freezing" of moving water, nor super-long blurring of water into featureless fog are close to what I perceive. This image conveys both the motion and the texture of the water.

Well, I guess I'm going to be the one detractor in the crowd, but this one just isn't doing it for me. I like the concept, even though it is a common one for Yosemite, and the blurred water is beautiful. My concern is the dogwood itself seems underlit and kind of dull. Perhaps I'm just having a bad day because I'm obviously in the minority here.

Might be a cliche but I'm still looking forward to getting mine eventually too. Nice take. Might pop the highlights some, especially on the water. And 4x5 is meant to give you extra space to crop ;) Isnt that way we shoot crazy high MPs? :P

aF

The thumb has Lon written all over it and photo is a nice one for sure.

I like this just the way it is but can’t help wondering what it would look like if the light on the foliage was warmed a bit to make more of a contrast with the cool blue water.

Confession: I just screen shot the photo and warmed the whole pic just a bit in ACR. The blue water was still blue but the foliage popped nicely. Keeping in mind that the laptop I am working on has a bluish tint to it so my results and thoughts may be totally irrelevant.

Lon, it's beautiful! I can just picture this hanging above a bed in a luxuriously appointed bedroom.

no complaints! Good eye!

This is gorgeous and very elegant Lon. However, I think I agree with Jared and Bill about increasing the highlights of the blossoms, but just slightly. In the larger version, the blossoms do look a bit brighter. The water color looks quite natural to me.

This is really a beautiful image, Lon! The water motion makes such a wonderful background for the blossoms. Your shutter speed worked perfectly! I could see the blossoms a bit brighter but I also love the mood this has as is.

Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, WI

Thanks so much for the comments and suggestions. In fact I started working on the suggestions like the blossoms, warming up the tree, highlights in the water, etc. and was liking the changes. Then I realized my brain fart.... some time ago I turned off the color setting questions to remind the dummies that your image doesn't have a working profile... so I've been working on these as "untagged" and then saving/converting them to sRGB, I never noticed. Until now when I assign my working profile of Adobe 1998 and crap, I'm gonna start all over from scratch....

Anyway, I'd like to incorporate the suggestions, but not sure how soon or if I'll get to post another version.

thanks for the observations and suggestions.

And no worries Bill! In fact there's something that bothers me too and I didn't want to mention it for fear of putting something in people's minds before they commented..... But I worked on this for the longest time and I never noticed this. There isn't a single blossom on this tree in full bloom! They're mostly all halfway closed up. I don't recall if dogwoods do that at night, say like poppies OR if the blossoms are new or old. anyway, they're certainly not the prettiest of blossoms, maybe that's what is not so appealing. The saving grace though I think is the water and the last light of sun hitting the tree/blossoms.

Thanks everyone!

Lon

Oh boy this is nice. The blues in the water and the patterns created are just as stunning as the intruding dogwoods. Very subtle and soothing. These smaller scenes are almost always captivating, and I am glad many of the fellow NPN members shoot these small scenes as well. Very inspiring to me.

Lon, this one really is much nicer in the larger size overall. I really like the general placement of the branch making for a fine view of all the dogwood leaves, flowers, and or buds. Once again the water backdrop of the Merced does an ideal job of isolating the entire view of each extended item. Looks like the 450 saved the day here doing an excellent job of reaching way out there too. The slight water flow or movement that we do see here appears perfect behind the static limb. No suggestions or ideas for changes here IMO. An excellent image....

Astia....what dat stuff?..

Dogwoods and water may be cliche, but I'm still looking for mine, Lon. Everything looks very natural here to my eye and your SS choice looks spot on to me. Well worth the wait IMO. I was going to suggest bumping up the highlights just a bit, but it sounds as though that is already in the works. Either way, great stuff.

Ed

Beautiful, Lon. The white dogwood blossoms are elegant against the blue water. I like the touch of light on the upper blossoms.

I really like this type of image (blossoms over the river) There's some very nice light on the upper blooms and the entire branch stands out from the flowing bg nicely.

Sure looks good and natural to me. The stream looks right for post sunset, clear sky reflection. I like how you've got the tree overlapping a darker area of the stream, it helps show off the blooms.

I want to thank everyone for their constructive and helpful feedback. Feedback on our images and the critiques here on NPN are invaluable! Please don't hesitate in providing constructive criticism and feedback when you post your comments. I know I've been helped here. Well, at least I feel much better about this one after re-working it. I went back and re-worked this from scratch and the original scan. I'm going to include the original and I'd be willing to bet that there may be some who think the original scan is the better of all of them! I will say that I was very fortunate with this capture and subsequent exposure and scan. I looked at this again and think now that I over processed my original post. I kept in mind the brightness and presence of the blooms and tried to keep the blues in check. You can see from the original that the leaves are heavy in the cyan so I tried to neutralize that. This version in the end is a tad brighter overall, a bit more contrast and a slightly different color balance. Oh, and Nathan, right out of the gate, you were the only one to nail the green tint, which is clear when comparing side by side.

Anyway, this may or may not be the final version, but following is my repost and after that the original scan. The only thing done to that one is resize/sharpen for the web.

thanks again everyone, I really appreciate the feedback.

Lon

edit, I also wanted to mention and disclose the use of not 1, but 2 glow layers. My very first layer (after spotting, cloning and cropping) was to duplicate the bg layer, convert to smart object, then add Gaussian blur, then drop the opacity to 20%. What this did was take the edge off the dogwood leaves and branches in terms of sharpness and contrast; basically a very watered down Orton technique. Later on I applied Tony Kuyper's "Smart Glow" also at a very weak 20% opacity which added just a wee bit more of contrast. Hopefully, and at least to me, if you compare that to the unprocessed scan, there isn't a huge difference. I think of it as refinement.

Here is the original scan. Not bad for film - no ACR, no LR... no double X processing...

You can see the crop and the various little twigs and such where I did the cloning. The crop was basically to remove the specular highlight area in the LRC.

Thanks again!

Lon

ps. And Paul, YES, this was Astia. I had it loaded in the holder and sat in my bag since before last November. Pretty shocked actually this came out!

I love the composition, the movement of the water is very calming and provides a wonderful contrast to the dogwood blooms. Super shot and processing Lon!

As beautiful as the first two iterations of the scene are, I really like the original scan, Lon.

A beautiful shot Lon. The water blues look fabulous... the repost is excellent.

The reworked image is much nicer all the way around, Lon. Color balance, contrast, sat, etc. It's never easy to reach that point where we go, OK, that's what it should look like. We all fight through "variations of", that looks very good, only to realize, wow, this is much better.

I enjoyed the evolution of your images. The brighter 2nd version is my favorite, and the mix of dark and lighter blues in the background help highlight the flowers. While I have never tried the glow technique, I can see how it was well used in this image. Definately not overdone as I have seen on other posts at NPN. I think you nailed it. That's why you keep going back to these subjects, always something different each time and room for improvement.

Another master piece from Lon. I love it, specially the second one.
Thanks for sharing it Lon.

I like the rework a lot, really an improvement regarding water color amd texture. I did spot some glow effect on the blossoms, which works pretty well for me. It makes them stand out against the blurred water very nicely. I also happen to also like the original framing, although the crop obviously is "cleaner".
Overall, a very solid (your standards) image, and I enjoy it very much.

Loved the original - repost is even better!

Thanks everyone! Sounds like the 2nd version is my keeper.

That's why you keep going back to these subjects, always something different each time and room for improvement.

Thanks Harry! EXACTLY. Yes, I could do different and more diverse locations, but this is so true. By returning to the same place, it becomes a challenge and one is forced to find and see things in new and different ways. More practically though, I'm limited really to 3, maybe 4 multi-day outings and so I usually end up where I get the biggest bang for the buck! Thanks for the comment and observation.

Lon

Nice, Lon. Good work with the repost.

I'm limited really to 3, maybe 4 multi-day outings

You’re not alone. Sometimes I get all choked up when I think about how I wish I could be out there more.

This is hardly a dime a dozen as this is simply gorgeous, Lon, especially the second post in which the flowers seem to have an inner glow. Your processing, and control of highlights, is impeccable as always. Hope you never stop making images of these flowers.

Beautiful in its simple beauty, well seen

re-post is fabulous.i'd like to see the re-post large! super work, lon.

Not big on words Lon, but your re post is simply beautiful. Love it.
John

Ah...that repost is way better. Whew ;) Kickass sir!

aF

I agree, the repost looks fantastic! I liked it before and now I love it! Really nice work on this redo Lon.

Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, WI

Truly a work of art Lon.
Dogwood images may be "a dime a dozen", but your work here has elevated it to super star status
Very nice!

I love images like this when they're done well Lon...and this one certainly is! The first one looks great, but repost is even better. I might crop just a smidge off of the top for balance, but that's very minor. Well seen and executed!

Lon, there is a wondeful weightless feel to this image for me. The dark and somehow forboding water complements the delicate plant most interestingly to my eye.

Peter

Another elegant and beautiful shot! I liked the original just fine, but the repost is better. Now that I have a 70-200, I'll have to give one of these a more serious consideration!

Chris

Lon, I sure like the extra shapes in the water near the bottom in the original. To me the bright spot adds some nice balance to the tree. Having said that, I can see why you cropped and cloned the way you did, because the original post and it's variants have a very classic feel to them. The first repost is significantly improved in both the brightness of the blooms and the color of the leaves.

I will take the repost and a slice of pie, please. With black coffee. Very well done, my friend. I like this a lot. Wonderful river colors with some purty flowers put in for accent.

After you cut the dogwood branch, Jason did a fine job holding it still over the water.

My wife saw this shot and she hit me, literally. She asked me why I cant take an image like this . She love it, and I love it. If it were mine, I might give it a little more contrast to make the branches pop from the water...but that is super minor. I'm probably only saying that to play it down to my wife, so she doesnt "make" me make a trip to Yosemite

Edit: just saw the second version and it is just what I had hoped for. Great job!