sunset WITH RAW FILE ADDED

I was pretty sure it was going to be evening of drama. The sky had been amazing all afternoon and I wasn’t getting much work done in my office – just staring out the window. So I snuck out early, grabbed my camera stuff and my dog and headed up a steep grassy slope new to me. This one was across the highway from Cashmere, with a stupendous view of the entire valley, all the way southeast to Wenatchee and northwest to Leavenworth and the Enchantments beyond. About a 1000' up I couldn’t get any foreground in my shots because the slope dropped off as steeply as a black diamond run at Stevens Pass, so I angled the lens up enough to avoid most of the city, including the Cashmere sewage treatment plant. The view is actually of the Enchantments although they are obscured by the clouds. The pyramidal hill middle right is called Flowery Divide Ridge and is one intense place to photograph Balsamroot in spring.

In about fifteen minutes or so I took forty-three shots, and this blend of four files is my favorite of the bunch. I would have liked to have gotten a nice foreground, but you take what you get.

Sony R1; 1/125, 1/100, 1/80 & 1/60 @ f/16, no filters, cold fingers.

Marc, I really like it for the art aspect, intense blues and yellows. I am probably in the miniority in this forum in sometimes liking work that is well beyond what the scene looked like in person.

With that said though I think the intense yellows don't balance out so well, some clouds have it and others have no trace of yellow almost like you blended it some places and not in others. If it really looked this way then disregard my statements and I guess I would just work on diffusing the yellow more to not look like it was "cut off" along certain edges of the clouds in PS. The comp is very nice so I would work on the colors here!

It works for me! I like how the yellows in the upper right provide some 3d feel to the clouds. I really like how the yellow is patterned just like the flame of a fire, as it gradually fades out of the frame.

Adrian: Two file blends were within the little "hooked" area that is the brightest yellow. Those were then blended into exposure number three, which was blown in that area. The remainder of the cloud was from exposure number three. Yes, the colors actually were distributed that way. However, I did do some dodging and burning in the cloud.

Edit: You are probably correct, Adrian, in that this image does not represent a scientifically correct rendering of the scene. Honestly, I'm more interested in an emotionally accurate interpretation of things than a journalistic rendering. The way I'm posting it here is the way it made me feel, and I'm big on feelings.

The colors do look a bit un-natural but very pleasing just the same. That's some lofty viewpoint you found Marc!

Wonderful light display Marc. I can see what Adrian is saying about the yellow; one other consideration would be to crop, removing some of the top and right to focus more on the yellow. Also, the darkest clouds seem just a little to dark to my eye.

An epic scene, Marc; very impressive. Though I'm struggling to connect with it as rendered here. I can imagine that the light was pretty dramatic, but this feels over-processed to me. The lower left feels particularly problematic - there appears to be a strong halo just above the sky-mountain interface, while the thin area just below appears very dark compared to the rest of the mountain further below - evidence of some masking/dodging that pulls on the eye. Also, if the yellow were that intense, I would expect warmer light to have been reflected below, while the light here still feels cool.

With the exposures that you captured, I suspect you've got everything you need to create a powerful, yet natural-looking scene. Just feels like some more careful processing could yield an image that better evokes in the viewer the feelings that you personally experienced.

Marc, I'm still somewhat of a newbie to landscape, so for my simple eye it just says POW! It's like a painting; I'm all for it. I'm not taking away from the critiques above... in fact, I'll re-read them to try and better train my eye to evaluate detail in an image based on all the criteria people use. But for me right now, it's a hit!

Hi, Marc--
I can see what the others are talking about. When I first looked at this it was like a Wow punch in the eye; the colors are so intense. Then I thought something was "off" about the processing. I think the issue might be one that I get tangled up with quite frequently? I end up with photos stuck somewhere in between photography and art. It strikes me that as your is now, it's kindallike that-- a 'tweener... I take to heart the description of your day capped off with the adventure to this very spot for one tremendous eye full of sunset. The photo has a special significance. To avoid confusing this crowd of photogs and to convery the emotion and artistry, how about applying some software painting filters to it? Then perhaps people wouldn't struggle so much over "realistic colors" and other technical photog stuff.
And by the way, thanks. Responding to your post helped me clarify the issue for myself and my photography.

This is the RAW file that was used for probably 95% of the cloud; all except the very center where it was blown. Note that, even with no processing here, the color is pretty yellow, and there are sectored areas in the cloud that are quite dark. Also, the halo area that Rick alluded to exists here, although it's certainly not as apparent, so maybe I overdid it. However, it was a very weird condition.

Seeing this RAW file now, what do you all now think?

This whole issue is really frustrating to me. As nature photographers we've all seen some wild stuff in nature, especially in the sky during sunrises and sunsets. However, when someone successfully captures something wild like this and gives it a little boost in photoshop (as we all do) nobody wants to believe it.

Photography is the 2-dimensional rendering of a 3-dimensional world. Therefore it is by its nature (no pun intended), not reality.

Ah well, it's an old argument and I suppose it'll go on forever

My opinion hasn't changed Marc, it's a great image worthy of a print. If I had to pick a nit, it would be that I'd like to see more of the valley.

"Photography is the 2-dimensional rendering of a 3-dimensional world."

Curtis, that's what my mother, a painter, told me a time or two about painting, but she could have been talking about our brand of art. I don't want to get on my soap box here, but not only are we missing the third dimension, but the sense of scale from peripheral vision and all the other senses. So a photo is an abstraction of reality... yada yada, I could go on but I'm stopping here.

I might be in the minority, but I actually prefer the sky in the original raw image, albeit the foreground is dark. Possibly would have worked using a 3 stop nd grad filter to bring out some more detail in the fg silhouettes. Sure is a dramatic sky in both images.
This discussion about "straight photography" vs. "modern photoshop art" reminds me of
the historical photographic controversy during the early 20th century. (no, I'm not that old yet).
Back then many photographers considered themselves "pictorialists".
Pictorialists used techniques such as gauze over the lens, gels, scratched negatives, paints, etc to give their photos a painterly appearance, which many considered artistic.
On the other side of the coin, another group considered themselves "straight photographers".
Straight photography is the capturing of scenes realistically, using only the camera, filters,
and equipment in the field, and some darkroom dodging and burning.
Alfred Stieglitz used to create pictorials, and his later work became more straight photography.
Ansel Adams was a straight photographer, and was so outspoken about it, that he founded a group called F/64, which promoted straight photography.
F/64 stands for the aperature setting F/64, which renders everything in sharp focus.
Ironically the most expensive photo ever sold was a pictorial photo. It was called Pond - Moonlight by Edward Steichen in 1904, and sold for $2.9 million in 2006.
Here's some interesting links from Wikipedia:
The most expensive photo, a pictorial (the predecessor to photo art):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pond-Moonlight
Description of pictorialism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictorialism
Ansel Adams and his group F/64 of straight photographers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_f/64
Gives one a historical perspective.
Harald Rust
Olympia Wa

Obviously speaking for myself only....I'm not objecting to common photographic embellishment. IMO, a majority of the imagery we see on the forum isn't "real". Waterfalls aren't naturally "blurred", for example. My comments relate specifically to some of the processing, which I think has left tell-tale signs that prevent the image from being as good as it could be. The presentation itself - independent of its relationship to "reality" - has some disconnects, imo.

Relative to my critique, as opposed to commenting on how "natural" the rendering appears to me, it would have been more accurate to say that I see a lack of continuity between how the sky is rendered and how the lower half is rendered.

Hope that helps clarify my comments.

Thank you, everyone, for your comments! Good food for thought.

Marc