Struggle for life

What a stark composition, very arresting. Is the vignette natural?

Nice! This tells both a story and is a beautiful picture in one. My only nit is the vignetting, which is a bit too strong for my taste.

Pretty interesting subject! Interesting and effective processing. Nicely done.

aF

Wow, this is bizarre. Stark and barren. Fascinating landscape. I would only recommend lowering some of the highlights in the FG and brightening the sky a bit. It seems a little off-balance as is.

Chris,
Very powerful image and a great title. Well seen, well captured and well presented.
I like this as is and the larger version is a must see to appreciate this image, the small version does not do it justice.
Man !

Very nice. Love the texture of the sand, and your processing is very effective.

Very nice find Chris. Sweet

Very cool find and I like the stark presentation. Maybe lighten the sky a tad to keep it more in balance with the FG. The grasses look a little unnaturally highlighted, though maybe this is the way the sands appeared?

Very interesting subject, Chris. Nicely composed and very interesting textures. As some others have commented, I'm wondering about the apparent vignetting. It's a little strong for my taste, particularly the very dark sky. Still a very engaging image.

Love the stark beauty of this barren looking landscape. Outstanding.

This is really nice, Chris. I like the story being told here. The comp gives a good scale to the starkness of the terrain and shows that these grasses are an anomaly. I agree with some of the others that the grasses are a little too light compared to the rest of the shot. Regardless, a pretty darn cool image.

What an interesting scene, very well captured. Like others I might reduce the vignetting.

Yes this one instantly grabbed me. I like it.

Agree with all comments that this image presents a pretty unique landscape! And also that the processing is off balance, inasmuch as the vignette over-burns the sky and the grasses seem over dodged. Cool and surreal otherwise!

Wow, this is really different and it totally works as an image. The dark sky is maybe a problem.

This is very cool, an abstract Landscape scene.
I would crop off a bit of the top to just above the clouds.

Thanks for all your comments. On the basis of these comments I have reworked the file and you will find the result here. Unfortunately I can only upload a small 720px wide file and I hope you can appreciate the differences with the original post. Some of you found the vignetting in the sky too strong and I reduced that a bit. In addition I reworked the foreground slightly, because some commented that the grass looked unnaturaly bright. Partly this might be the result of the monitor used to view the image. On my EIZO monitor the grass in the original file looks fine, but on my laptop the grass seems lighter indeed. Whatever, I tried to achieve a better foreground balance in the repost.

Unique find. There are lots of contrasts here, including subject contrasts, which I like a lot.

Real nice. I actually prefer the original post. It is a little more abstract and has more impact for me.

Powerful and beautiful picture with the appropriate title. The different textures of the sand make the light very special all around the vegetation and in the mountains. Bravo!

Weird and wonderful. I prefer the re-post, the overly dark sky of the original I found rather disturbing.

I prefer the original post, as well, Chris. The abstract nature has more emotional impact for me. There's something very mystical about it.

--P

Unexpected. I like how you made this scene so interesting given the elements and light.