Life in Death

An exceptional shot for me, Chris. The tangible foreground details make me feel like standing in the middle of the scene. There is also a nice balance between near and distant elements to my eye.

Peter

That works very nicely.  All the elements are good including the sky with its softened smeared sky juxtaposed with the regular shapes of the cracked and dried mud.  Then that wash of golden light on the mountains. 

The redness of the sunlit ridge is attentive, and the dried mud tiles are nice with their curled edges catching soft light.  It seems to have a very slight ccw tilt based on the back edge of the tan playa.
 

Excellent, Chris. Beautiful colors and textures. Processing looks good. Agree that it seems to have a slight CCW tilt.

Fabulous light and detail.  I too thought there was a ccw tilt, but now I'm not so sure.  the darker hill or dune in the middle right and the line of debris kind of throw me off.  The sky seems a tish overdone to me, but it might be my monitor.  I can imagine cropping off about 1/4 of the top of the sky to keep the eye in the cracks and mountains.  The sky keeps pulling me (which is good, my eye travels through the scene), but in my mind the foreground and light on the mountains are the key elements.

I love how the cracked mud leads me though the scene.  Great light and color, Chris, well timed.

Conditions that people dream of... Attractive light and sky with the great playa. Either dust bunnies or just spotty clouds at the  top center I might delete. 

Perfect light in many ways but the sky is what really makes this image for me. 

I'm wondering - is this a really long exposure made in order to generate such wispy clouds?

It takes a very low sun angle to have the sides of those cracks sunlit while the landscape is in shadow. As i recall there is about a 5 minute window for this phenomena. Well thought out and done.

 

Igor,
Thanks, I don't recall an exceptionally long exposure. Whatever would be normal for this amount of ambient light. I was set up way early and took shots as the sky and light changed. I was noticing how nice the clouds were forming though. The edges of the mud tiles are not receiving any direct light. Just directional side light from the glowing sky above and behind.

Wow, you couldn't ask for more. Great foreground great light and great sky.

Wonderful imaging, Chris.  That sure is a great time of day out there.  I don't detect any tilt, as the edge of the playa is not a horizon and I've been there enough times to know that deceiving phenomena.

Beautiful Chris.  I ike this one a lot. I'm a sucker for the cracked mud of the playa.  Very nicely done.

I really like the layers/color transition in this image that makes for a wonderful contrast.  The larger image looks great, way to go.

Beautiful, Chris. Really a top tier DV image. 

Beautiful, Chris. Sweet light with a great foreground. You nailed this one.