Just Watching...

Gallery: LandscapePosted June 26, 2013194 views11 comments

(This was taken the same evening as the recent post, "Spring Forth")

It was an interesting evening, with strong winds aloft moving the clouds speedily across the landscape, but calm winds below, perfect for reflections and, well, mosquitoes... I'm fortunate none of those little pests made it into my images. Anyways, I decided while taking this, that it would be best in a square format, as the bank to my right was sort of uninteresting and chaotic, and to my right was nothing but more water (lots of empty space for one's eye to gravitate towards and get stuck in). The light was incredible to watch from this point of view!

I have some more from this evening, and I'll save one or a few for later...

Canon 60d 10-22mm @ 10mm
ISO 100 --- f/11 --- two exposures --- tripod --- no filters

The two images were blended for dynamic range, and also for DOF.

Thanks for the Comments/Critiques, and VIEW LARGE...

Comments

11 comments

Comment posted by Morris McClung on June 26, 2013 at 3:38 PM

I think the square format works well with this, and that is a great sky. The balance of tones looks completely natural to me. Others may want more detail in the shadows. As they always do.

Registered on May 7, 2007, 670 Posts, 19650 Comments

Comment posted by Chet Dowell on June 26, 2013 at 4:52 PM

Beautiful sunset with reflections, Nathan. The colors are well presented and the foreground log works well. Nice work!! Chet

Registered on December 3, 2012, 237 Posts, 1171 Comments

Comment posted by Nick Bristol on June 26, 2013 at 9:20 PM

Nathan, This looks wonderful to me. It is really one of those images that just makes me wish I was there. I know so well how the mosquitoes can be such a pest so maybe not so bad just looking at it from my studio. I'm with Morris and think the shadows look very natural, just like I was there seeing and feeling this evening. I'm enjoying this!

Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, WI

Registered on February 1, 2004, 752 Posts, 14140 Comments

Comment posted by Ed Lowe on June 26, 2013 at 10:58 PM

Everything looks very natural here from the gorgeous color in the sky and water to the shadows. Beautifully done, Nathan. Keep them coming.

Ed

Registered on February 7, 2004, 414 Posts, 7115 Comments

Comment posted by Nick Palmieri on June 27, 2013 at 7:37 AM

I think the square crop works well. Reminds me of the Adirondacks and yes I can feel the mosquitos! I like the shadow as presented and the composition works well.

Registered on September 1, 2011, 35 Posts, 748 Comments

Comment posted by Steve Zimic on June 27, 2013 at 8:00 AM

Great capture Nathan. I too think the square format works really well here and of course the log in the foreground really makes the image special. The blending is done very well although I'd like to know what blending technique you used - might be helpful to others. The large version appears to have a small white doughnut in the upper left corner - perhaps remnants of a copyright symbol? My only nit is that again in the larger version, the clouds appear a bit over sharpened. The image is wonderful as is but I think that cropping a bit from the top would make for a stronger image.

Registered on November 23, 2003, 176 Posts, 727 Comments

Comment posted by Nathan Apodaca on June 27, 2013 at 10:11 AM

Thanks, everyone!

Steve---I see what you mean about the 'empty sky' up top. Didn't really think about it until you mentioned it, but I'll play around with some different crops. Also, I see what you mean by the sky being too sharp... As far as blending goes, I edited two different images in RAW, then opened both up in CS5. After putting the darker image as the top layer, I simply erased the bottom third of the dark image with a large, soft brush, to show the lighter image below and get more shadow detail (I didn't just do the bottom third as a hard line. I painted in a few other places as well, such as some tree-shadow-detail. After that I adjusted, then adjusted, and finally adjusted a bit more to try and make it seamless!

Thanks again for the feedback!

Registered on November 16, 2011, 67 Posts, 1127 Comments

Comment posted by Mike Dawson on June 28, 2013 at 1:14 AM

Beautiful light and calm here, perhaps a slight crop from the top?

Registered on February 4, 2006, 364 Posts, 8872 Comments

Comment posted by Joerg Bonner on June 28, 2013 at 8:58 AM

fantastic sky and reflection! your processing is spot on here. all in all a superb shot!

Registered on September 5, 2011, 44 Posts, 221 Comments

Comment posted by Matt Anderson on June 29, 2013 at 11:43 AM

Stunning mood, and what a reflection!

Registered on September 6, 2007, 346 Posts, 2696 Comments

Comment posted by Lon Overacker on June 29, 2013 at 5:11 PM

Nathan,

Just a beautiful sunset. I really like the symmetry between sky and reflection and toss in another vote for the square format. Beautifully processed as well. No nits of suggestions from me. Well done.

Lon

Registered on November 24, 2006, 521 Posts, 19147 Comments