Cracked Canyon

What do you folks think of this one? I've been on the fence with it for a while. This is fifty-mile gulch in Utah's Escalante. I love these cracked mud patterns but capturing them well in relation to the canyon environment was difficult. Fifty-mile is so remote, we found no other footprints in the canyon that disturbed them. I liked the soft light emerging in the background of this image, but I'm not so sure about the foreground and overall cohesiveness of it.

I really like this one Marc! Great dodging and burning and the draw into the picture is terrific. Additionally the strong ovals are really interesting to view. I havent seen a shot quite like this one.

On my monitor the colors up above are a nip hot/saturated.

Thanks for sharing!

RichieV

Its definitely different from any slot canyon shot I can remember seeing. It just seems a little dark at the bottom and it seems like the bright section at the top keeps drawing you out of the mud patterns.

Hi Marc,

I stared at this image for awhile and I have some vague unease about it too...Can't totally put my finger on it, but it seems like there are two images competing here--one with mud patterns on the bottom, one with canyon light on the top. Both are excellent, but their merge leaves something that doesn't pull it together for me, either.

I do love the light you found, and I'm a fan of the cracked mud patterns of the Colorado Plateau as well...

I put my hand up and subtracted the bottom 20% of the image, basically to where the canyon walls just end and the mud fans out...That felt a little more coherent to me.

Thanks for sharing. And interesting work, as always. Very thought provoking subject.

-D

Marc, i totally love this shot. The curves and sense of spiralling inward to the back are great. I personally wouldnt crop, i think this comp works. The colors are great, sat is fine. I think the problem may be your vignette, which ordinarily would focus the subject but here it detracts because the strength of the shot is that sense of depth or travelling back to the bg corner, and the vignette pushes the center part forward, so it loses depth. I think it would work better if the center mud pattern/oval were darker than the one at the bottom edge, but hard to say without actually seeing it.

I am on the fence literally with this image. I too find some things that distract me, yet on the other hand I like it as is. I have viewed the image 5 times now and each time I come back I get a slightly different feeling over all.

I think you have the right elements in the image and the saturation on three different systems I use here at the paper show a little different. None are really bad at all.

So I'm going to go with Stan on this photograph and say I am liking it.

I love this! Great lines to draw in the eye, with good foreground detail that actually helps to pull the eye through. And a nice curve to boot. This one will definitely influence the way I look at canyons in the future!

I was gonna comment almost exactly what Mel wrote, but he beat me to it. You've set an awfully high standard for yourself over the past few years. For better or worse, nothing short of incredible is now expected.

Excellent image, and I love the oval cacked mud hole. To echo some other comments, the very bottom is a little dark (possible crop?). It's funny, I was just talking to my wife the other day about going to fifty-mile canyon within the next month or so, and "bam!" an image apppears.

The mud patterns are really cool, but I'm on the fence with this one as well. I assume you intentionally darkened the edges and this isn't vignetting. But it doesn't work for me here. It seems to make the image a little too cramped and I don't need it to keep my eyes drawn towards the center of the image. Cropping the image might help too, as the image seems a little unbalanced. But I'm not sure if there's any great ways to crop it. If you took any shots with a little more at the bottom and a little less at the top, I think I'd like that better. Or maybe a crop from the top of this one a little above the rocks. Maybe a small saturation boost as well.

I'm normally not this nit-picky. But like Doug said, you've set the bar very high.

I like the intimacy in the composition, Marc. I feel like I could walk right into it. Well, I have walked right into it, only I had to wade through at the time
It may not be eye-popping, but at least for me there's a certain romance to it.

Guy

Guess it takes all kinds, as I sort of like the dark and light transitions that make you feel like your in the shadowy canyon and walking or looking toward the sunny area. Not a jaw dropping grand vista, but a very very pleasant intimate, as I see it.

I like the composition here, how it all seems to be swirling/spiraling out of the top center. The mud foreground and floor of the image is so "warped" that it is sort of disorienting.

I would crop the top off so only about 8-12 inches (hard to judge size here) of the wall above the small chockstones are showing, then lighten up the bottom by using a gradient filter in PS. With the right light balance this would be an awesome image, at the moment its still one I wish I had made.

I love the mud cracks too, Marc, and I find them very attractive. I like your photo. Maybe I would prefer the lower part a little lighter, but other than that, it works very well for me. I like how you composed it.

I'm struggling to connect with this one, Marc. The mud cracks are interesting, but the rest of the image doesn't complete the scene for me; that leaves the mud cracks on their own, and while interesting, they aren't strong enough to pull the whole thing together. I think that some of the suggested tonal adjustments and/or crops could benefit the image, but, I don't think you'd end up with something that conveys the essence of the place in the same way that most of your images do - even the more subtle ones.

the craftmanship is high, but the composition is off angled, the cracks are cool tho!

So most of us are on agreement - it's an on-the-fence type of image. I recognize the points that have been critiqued and I agree. Thanks for the input.

Great shot! I really like the wide angle perspective and the details in the bottom of the image.