Rainier Sunset - ICP Awards

I spent a couple of days at Rainier with my photographer friend, Greg Vaughn, before going to the ICP Awards opening in Seattle Friday night. Greg and I waited through two days of rain, wind and fog before the mountain showed itself Thursday night at sunset. The scene was pretty strongly back lit and tricky. I have worked this a bit and not sure I'm happy with it yet. There is haloing around the mountain and trees, but I didn't do any blending there, so I'm not sure where it came from. Perhaps a web compression issue.

The ICP Awards were great. You can check out the show onlineHERE. Kevin McNeal had several amazing images in the show. Adrian Klein was runner up in the Landscape Category and one of my images was the winner in the flora category. Art Wolfe was there to hand out awards and say a few words about the future of the competition. Marc Adamus apparently did not enter this year, giving quite a few others a chance in the landscape category. Something like 8 of the images in the landscape category last year were Marc's.

Congrats Sean! Your flora image is great, love the vibrant reds of the willows. And Kevin's accepted entries were amazing too! I think his and many others are better than mine personally. Although I must say that the winning photo in landscapes from Tyson Fisher is a pretty darn amazing scene to have witnessed and captured.

As for your Rainier image I like it overall. The sky and FG fog really adds to it. I wish the left side was a little lighter personally. I do see the haloing but it's very minor and some quick blending can get rid of it. Odd that it's here since you did not blend to start with.

Cheers!

I think your image is wonderful. The print is just amazing. The best thing to me is that it is a bit different from the standard landscape photos we often see. Very worthy of the honor.

I don't see the haloing on my screen Sean. Very nice shot, looks like you were on the other side from where I was last week. I spent Wed-Fri on the Paradise side. Heading up there again in a little while, probably again thru Fri.

Congratulations and Congrats to Adrian too.

Sean,

Patience pays! Congratulations... I'm out & about later this week & weekend( don't know where yet).. if you around somewhere let me know.
JG

Sean,

I played around with it and would like to post a redo that I feel best illustrates my thoughts on getting better depth out of this one and improving the overall look and feel. If it's OK with you, I'll post it and elaborate.

I love the composition and light here, Sean. I'll be interested to see Marc's rework as I feel it is missing something in the post-processing, though I can't quite put my finger on it. Certainly worth the wait, though!

Put some polish on it, and this is a great shot! Congrats to you and everyone else, by the way, in the ICP awards.

Marc,

Please feel free to work some magic and re-post. Make sure you include all the gritty details.

Thanks!

I felt like doing a few things here, mostly in the interest of balancing the light. I didn't totally like the fact that the rock details in the shadows were actually brighter than the left half of the sky. Don't know if this was a graduated filter issue or what, but it reduced the depth and realism I felt the image could have. I didn't want to totally sacrifice the rocky details in the comp though, so I left that mostly in tact save for a few stronger highlights. I worked this thing with a considerable amount of dodge/burning at various opacities and settings in the interest of painting some more depth into it and opening things up a bit so the eye moves more fluidly from foreground to background. I'd have more success with this starting from a RAW file, but you'll get the idea.

No fancy PS magic here, just a different vision of the scene. I also diminished the impact of the shadow detail around the trees on the right side, which I felt were contributing to that haloed look over there. Lastly, I reduced those color temperatures in the rocky area to feel more cohesive with the sky and bring a little more harmony to the scene - could go either way on that though.

This is great Marc! Thanks! I really see where I headed in the wrong direction with this. For some reason I was feeling that a darker sky was the way to go, but lightening it up really helps balance the scene, as does bringing down the right FG. I'm going to go back and start again with the original files and see what I can accomplish. I'll re-post if I manage to make any improvements.

Great job of capturing what we saw, Sean. Good thing we stuck it out, since it sure wasn't very looking hopeful a little earlier. Turned out to be an awesome show.

Like Marc, I thought your original post would benefit from darkening the foreground rocks. I'd also like to compare a version that was slightly lighter on the left edge and the upper sky.

Congratulations to you, Adrian and Kevin on the ICP Awards!

OK, this is tough, both versions are great! I'd like to see the drama of Sean's contrast on the left, combined with Marc's subtle darkening of the right, in one shot...

But, either way it's looking good!

Edward

Clouds are going every which-way Sean, love the surreal look on Rainier. I also love the image you entered into the flora contest. I remember that from your favorite images from last year and just love the red and white patterns that photo presents.

David M. Cobb