Outing photo

This scene was taken Monday afternoon after the get together, along the "Scenic" road into Mammoth Lakes. I cleaned the foreground up a bit in Photoshop, and did the basic contrast, curves and saturation adjustments. The blurry look is from moving the Clarity slider down to -77 in Camera Raw. Does this look work? Brutal honesty please, as well as any other suggestions.

It was great meeting all of you who were there!! I will be posting other photos in the next few days.

Tony Siciliano

Brutal, what shall it be first whips and chains? the rack? the Iron Maiden? Aww heck I'll just go with the honesty part. Tony this is a mood piece IMO, If it was a road with trees I'd be going I lived this I drove through these conditions to get to the meet and greet. Which was great by the way. Chills my bones, so if that was the look you were going for you got it.

Paul

Tony the composition is extremely nice however the branch in the upper top right seems to be slightly intrusive. None the less the scene is just fine with the diagonal streaking snowflakes. The painterly stuff needs to be done right to work and I think it works here. Nice creativity Tony.

The photo gives that look of one squinting through their front windshield while driving on a snowy winters' day. I like it - brings back good memories. I can almost feel the snow flakes hitting my face as I exit the car. You captured the mood nicely.

- DMP

I think this is very pretty. I'm also not crazy about the branch on the upper left but you can crop a little from the top or PS it out.

- Dan.

I like it. The falling snow and sleet make for nice diagonal lines.

Tony,

This a wonderful image! I love the effect of the blowing snow.... but I must confess, I'm unclear what you meant by "blurry look" from the "clarity slider." Do you actually mean the blowing snow look? I wonder too, because I don't remember it snowing on Monday - but then I didn't go as far south as Mammoth. But regardless, the image and "the look" works very well for me.

I would agree with others about the branch in the UL - not a major issue, but something that caught my eye as well.

Nice meeting you this past weekend.

Lon

I like the lack of contrast created by the blowing snow and your post-processing enhancement by reducing the clarity. I would maybe crop just below that branch in the ULC. Other than that, this works for me as presented.

Thanks for the comments!! It's funny how sometimes you don't notice the obvious in your own photos, like the intrusive branch. Perhaps too much emotional involvement in a photo creates tunnel vision. As to your question Lon, the blowing snow is present in the original. Moving the Clarity slider to -77 blurred the trees a bit, but more noticably blurred the spaces between the trees and made the whole scene look more foggy. And I was mistaken in my original post, this was taken on Sunday after the meetup. When I left June Lake it was clear, but somewhere between the south June lake turnoff and the turnoff to the scenic route into Mammoth, it started to snow.

Wonderful emotional piece Tony, I really like the result! I would be tempted to make a slight crop off the top (to eliminate a branch in the ULC). Very nicely done!

I spend a lot of time skiing at Mammoth and this is a very familiar scene. Can't wait for more. Well done and it was nice to meet you.