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Glowing Cottonwoods
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Glowing Cottonwoods

by Harley Goldman

Gallery: LandscapePosted March 16, 2017213 views7 comments
Dave and I were finishing up an evening shoot in the Owens Valley when I saw these trees glowing way off in the distance. I managed to make a couple of images before the light was gone. There were a lot of power poles and lines in the scene (cloned out) and I said to Dave that I hope I don't like this one because it will be a lot of work removing that stuff. Well, I kinda like it. Isn't that how it goes. 

D810, 70-200mm

Comments

7 comments
Comment posted by Bill Fach on March 16, 2017 at 3:01 PM
Harley: Had no sense of scale from the thumbnail but this is excellent. The play of light and shadow across the hills reminds me of being in the dunes. Marvelous moment superbly composed and captured.>=))>
Registered on November 1, 2003, 1805 Posts, 26981 Comments
Comment posted by Preston Birdwell on March 16, 2017 at 3:28 PM
The lit cottonwood trees and the light on the hills is wonderful. You might take a look at reducing the blues and cyan in the shadows--not by much, though. I like the textures in the hills. The large version is the star, here.
--P
Registered on November 1, 2003, 471 Posts, 5188 Comments
Comment posted by Lon Overacker on March 16, 2017 at 9:03 PM
Harley,

You have become the long-distance, what do you call it, "wide open spaces?"  This fits right in there and is seen and captured wonderfully. The play of light and shadow really makes this landscape work.  The cottonwoods are but just icing on the cake.

I think I agree with Mr. B on the cyan. Especially in the foreground sage, less so, but there, in the fringes of the shadow areas.  While not a nit, I could see you warming up the light tones a little.

Well done.

Lon
Registered on November 24, 2006, 521 Posts, 19147 Comments
Comment posted by John Williams on March 16, 2017 at 11:34 PM
The light on the hills is beautiful (enough so, that I wish the shadowed area had that lighting as well). The cottonwoods bring a lot to the image by adding perspective.
Registered on September 6, 2007, 221 Posts, 5985 Comments
Comment posted by Igor Doncov on March 17, 2017 at 2:07 AM
I always enjoy landscapes that include shadows drifting over the land. Aside from the trees I really like the set of smaller shadows to the right of the big shadow. I would be interested to see a composition that crops off the right to the first tree that partially shaded and a crop off the top that reaches to the bottom of the shadow that's creeping in from the top of the frame. I suspect that the trees will become more prominent and the shadows are more evenly spread across thee entire image. I also like the sharp demarcation of the large shadow on it's upper side and the diffused demarcation on the opposite side. It's really a nice study of shapes and textures created by shadows.
Registered on November 22, 2014, 189 Posts, 2733 Comments
Comment posted by gary phillips on March 20, 2017 at 12:46 AM
Can't believe you've only got 5 comments on this Harley.  I love the shadow/light play here.  The glowing cottonwoods present a lovely scale to not only the emptiness of this country but also it's size.  I like this one.  Can't see any trace of the power poles and lines either.
Registered on October 24, 2013, 185 Posts, 4136 Comments
Comment posted by Dave Dillemuth on March 20, 2017 at 10:51 AM
Fine image, Harley. Beautiful warm tones and the shadow play adds some nice drama. Really shows the scale of the valley nicely. I could see playing with cropping a bit off the right side but other than that processing looks great.  
Registered on December 10, 2015, 104 Posts, 1112 Comments