Gnome Canyon

After Coal Mine Canyon near Tuba City, I drove down a washboarded road to another canyon. Caught some gentle light at dawn and dusk. I posted one image in ESS yesterday, but here are some other views.

#1 Sunday morning had a few wispy clouds turn pink. I hope the soft lighting and the little color in the sky make up for the lack of a dramatic sunrise.

#2 This was taken Saturday evening before the ESS image.

#3 Black Knights
Some clouds moved in late for the secondary sunset and provided some color. I decided to make this a silhouette since the details in the rock were lacking and too underexposed in another bracketed image. Bumped the saturation some. Wonder about your thoughts on using black negative space in this case.

Really like #1. Those soft pastel colors are great. Good choice also on the Silhouette.

LOVE #1 and 3 as is. Just beautiful colors and comps. I think if you hit 2 with the Unsharp mask @ 20>50>0 and boosted the brightness and contrast just a smidge, I would be loving that one as much

I love them ALL! Nice stuff, Doug.

Doug:

I really like #1 and #3 a lot. #1 has some sweet pastels and the lighting in the sky and on the rock formation is exquisite. I also love the silhouette for its drama and boldness. The negative space works for me in this shot. I tried looking at it cropped to a pano, but I didn't like that. It needs the negative space at the bottom for balance with the dramatic sky. Good job

Pam, the photo #2 was taken 20 minutes after sunset and was originally given the 20/50/0 treatment. I applied it again after your suggestion and the double whammy helps a bunch. 20/50 seemed a little too much on the full image, so have applied 10/50/0 in the 720pixel repost. No change to brightness/contrast though. Let me know what you think.

Frank, I too tried a greater bottom crop on the silhouette and discarded the attempt and ended up with this for the best balance to me. I think I might try to rid/paint the white area on the left skyline. This was a 15 sec exposure, -2EC, f/4, iso 200

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions.

Looks a great area. Llike #1 best.

Looks great Doug!

Real pretty, Doug--the first two are great! I like the silhouette, but the white area is a bit problematic.

Pretty stuff. The 1st is my favorite. I'm with Stan about the 3rd one.

Worked on the white areas of the silhouette. Pulled some color from the clouds on the left to paint with figuring the sky in that area would be a yellowish-orange, and some blue on the right.

The re-work of the sky on #3 is perfect. I really like #1 as it is too. Nice job Doug!

I love #1. The rework in #3 is perfect. Great job!!

Really like the pink in the clouds in the first image.