Sand in my Ears [+1 plz look!]

Here's one from my trip to the dunes in death valley last week... thirty minutes before the wild sunset happened that I shared in ES&S. I hope this captures the wild stormy nature of the moment. It was pretty gray to start with, and I pulled a lot of contrasts out of the sky in particular for the conversion. Let me know what you think!

This is very nice. I don't know why you want it so flat. I wouldn't mind more contrast.

- Dan.

I've never seen the weather portrayed so vividly over the dunes. Nice pix, Floris!

Thanks Dan - I might be able to pull out a little more contrast, but too much more and it loses the feeling of being there for me. It was pretty flat and gray, as you can see in the original...

I can see why you went with the black and white. It much more dramatic and the sand in the air is so much more visible. Very nice Floris.

To me the two images do look to be true to each other, Floris. I'm no B&W person, so the color shot gets me more tuned into how things looked and felt during the event. Very nice work here.

Ah, we probably were there @ the same time. I messed up my camera at the Eureka sanddunes on sunday last week-end. Lots of wind tht day.

Sorry to hear about your camera Dan. This was Friday though.

I fixed the camera, and it's working again. :) I finally processed my photos and I posted.

BTW, looking t your smugmug portfolio, I think this pic is way below par your production standards and unsalvageable for you.

However to make the best, I'd stick to B&W, but boost both black/contrast and brightness to make it less somber, yet enhance the sand grain and sky cloud textures...

Thanks Dan, though it's the somber dismal mood that makes the image. I've tried adding more contrast, and it doesn't work for me. I've had a few people state that they really like it (and want a print), so while it's not my favorite, and originally considered it a reject, I think it's worth keeping around.

Sure, I'm just saying it's clearly a notch down from the rest of your collection.
Beyond exposure, there's an interrestiong texture play between sky and sand, but something doesn't click in the field of view to blow me away. Maybe it feels stuffy and I'd want an extra inch of view on the sides.

BTW, how did you protect your camera? Is it fully weathersealed?

Appreciate the feedback Dan.

As far as weathersealing... nothing special, just tried to keep the camera down wind from me as much as possible. I had a filter on the lens, so the lens was completely sealed, the 5DmkII had whatever protection canon decided to give it. I always keep a rocket blower in my pocket and blow the water/sand out of the buttons periodically, so far I've never had a camera die on me, and I don't baby 'em! If something goes wrong I'll call my insurance company.

just for the heck of it, here's a version with the color thrown in over the B&W - does it work, over processed looking? I kinda like the separation it gives, and maybe it works better for you color freaks

Or a little less processed looking... I think this one more. Or maybe it's not salvageable as Dan says..

I like your most recent post the best. Is that sand in the sky, or noise?

Thanks Ben - I'm gonna say it's a little bit of both. This was shot at iso 800, to 'freeze' some of the sand blowing. There's a bit of noise in the sky, but for a shot like this, I honestly don't mind it. The downsizing/sharpening enhanced that of course too. I'm preferring the last as well.

I like both of the color+bw blends the best.

- Dan.

Floris--would you mind elaborating on how you blended the images? Thanks!

Sure Ben, first for the B&W I converted the raw twice, for the foreground and sky. Then I just did a whole bunch of curves layers with masks to adjust the contrasts/exposure to my taste for various regions of the image. Then I threw the original color on top and set the blend mode to color. Then decided that the contrasts were too much, so I put another copy of the original on top in normal blend mode and blended it in where I wanted. The one 'non-traditional' thing I did was to paint in some brown color in the wind blown sand to bring out the separation from the sky more (I did this on the color blend mode layer).

Wow, I never would have thought to do that. So, what images would you say benefit from this technique?

Which technique are you referring to? My processing always basically consists of a bunch of curves layers. Instead of reprocessing the entire image for color I just threw the color on top of the B&W which had contrasts I was happy with, but then the contrasts were too strong, so I brought some of the original tones back with another layer.. definitely not the most efficient or straightforward way to do it, but in the end it got where I wanted

Another way I sometimes work with color images is to set the curves layers to 'luminosity' blend mode - then they don't affect the colors, though this can give you weird results sometimes. I find that understanding those blend modes can really help with some processing.

The last post FTW! Great mix of drama and reality... that probably looks very close to how it felt being out there. Good stuff!