Stark Dawn

Came back from my first trip Alvord area at the base of the Steens Mountains this week where we had all four seasons of temps and weather. If you have not been it's a must in my book.

Does this comp do anything for you? I know it's not that unique yet curious what others think. Honest critiques please.

5D / 17-40L @ 20 / f/11 and .4 sec
ISO 100
3 Stop GND

And at the end of a windstorm with snow flurries, windchill at best was in the teens!

Here is a vertical version as well.

I prefer the vertical version, the comp and light look better to my eye. I think it would be even better without the twig, do you have a twigless version?

I like the shot you emailed better than both of these though.

Thanks Zack. As for the twig I am in a agreement that it was not working for me as much as I liked at the scene but thought I would post it. I thought about it hindsight that I shot the scene horz w/ and w/o twig but not vetical w/o and I like the veritical but wish it was 'twigless' too. Oh well. I am sure I will post some others too, like the one you saw.

Adrian, These are good images. You just have to realize that since we have already been subjected to Marc and Zack's images, it's gonna be hard to look at others from the same area....

I totally agree Darren, but there is not much I can do about that. It's no different than taking a photo of some icon that has been photographed a million times. I guess I could not post them but then should I not post if I said to myself it's not as good as another image posted from that same area. When I am posting I am looking for honest critiques on my image whether it's better, different or similar as xyz photographer has posted. Isn't that what we all want. Maybe that is just me. Again, I know where you are coming from as I totally respect the images they have taken there. Those are what propelled me to go there!

You should absolutely post these, everyone sees and interprets a location differently. Everyone has their own perspective, and story to tell about a location.

Post for sure. The thing that came to me was that the cracks are weatherd and not as defined on there edges as I would like to see. But, were I there I'd be shooting them. May get down that way in late May.

Post for sure - if we decided on posting based on somebody elses photos from somewhere, nobody would post. These are very nice and truly stark. I would work at getting the horizon to not curve in the 1st one. That is the most distracting thing I see. A bit of vignetting on the edges might help make it feel more focused and stop the land from exiting the frame. I think I might like that in a shot like this.....

Adrian, got your email and sorry if my post sounded condescending.

of course post....heck I post stuff all the time just to post something....

for the images you posted above, I would like to see a bit more saturation or color in the sky and maybe a slight contrast bump in the desert using the curves!

Thats about all I can see that I would change!!!!

Here's a vote for the vertical image. The twig in the foreground doesn't bother me much. I wish there was a bit more punch in the background sky area.

I think this is pretty darned good but I admit that we have become a bit used to seeing images from here a'la Mr. Adamus and a few others that are just superlative, so. Neverthless, I enjoy seeing other's efforts from here (they probably are more akin to what I'd end up coming back with).

maybe something like this....

I have never been here so I am not one to judge how it is supposed to look....

Thanks all for the comments so far.

Darren, No worries. The repost looks good. I will play around with it some more. The image I posted is definitely more representative of what I actually saw but I do like to stretch my imagination on the images some and I need to explore that on this piece. Even though the sky and FG believe it or not is already a big bump in contrast from the RAW version!

Yes, i've heard of that 'xyz' guy. Now your photo makes me want to ge there also. Cliff

Thank you, Zack, for your comment. If we are "competing" on this forum, we might as well stop posting except for Marc and Zack! Everyone's take on a scene is worth seeing.

Adrian, of the two you posted, I like the vertical for it's pattern in the foreground and more color in the sky. The horizontal image looks a little flat but probably could evoks a certain mood that it doesn't have yet, that perhaps prompted you to make the image at the time...

Coming in late here, I thought on first blush that you needed to up the contrast on the horiz version and I see that it's been done. Better that way, although I think the vert w/o the twig, also with the contrast upped would be the best yet. Keep on posting, Adrian.