Shooting the Moon

Moon House that is, one of my favorite ruins.

This is a shot I've visualized for a long time and have been meaning to work on for quite a while. I decided to use it as a test/intro to Nik HDR Efex Pro. This is a -2 to +2 bracket. I have to say I'm pretty impressed with the Nik software. It's been a while since I've done much in Photomatix, but the Nik controls feel more natural and the depth of control is great. In addition to the tone mapping controls, you have regular color/exposure/light adjustments that seem to draw on the underlying images.

This is an image that I've been thinking about for a while and I want to make it as compelling as possible, so any comments, suggestions, critiques are welcome. Does it work or not?

Canon 5DII, Canon 17-40L

Here is a black and white conversion using Silver Efex Pro. Again, the control and treatments are great. A lot of fun. A different approach than converting in LR. I like the film effects. For this one I chose Agfa APX Pro 100. Their toning presets are fun. This looked pretty good with a light selenium tone but I decided to stick with neutral.

This version is growing on me. Let me know what you think.

That certainly is a natural looking HDR exposure you created. I'd have never guessed, which is a good thing, right?

As I was looking at the color version, I wondered how it might look in b&w. Question answered. I sure like how that wall starts right at the edge of the frame and draws your eye right to the ruins. A few things I think would make this more compelling. Cropping the top down to near the edge of the snake pictograph on the left, and then cropping the right side to near the outside of the main 'wall' ruin would serve two purposes. Losing as much of the sunlit areas as possible and concentrating the viewer's attention more on the ruins themselves. As a bonus, the right crop leaves a small triangle of lit ground that looks pretty good to me.
The HDR treatment did rob this of a bit of contrast, and when these places are photographed in b&w I think that added contrast (via Nik SEP?) makes them look more dramatic (hence compelling). I also think that a slight natural looking vignette would be an asset.
Sorry for the wordy post, but I also think this is worth the best you can give it!

Nice shot! I like the spot you chose to shoot the ruins from. I mostly agree with John's comments. If you crop a little off the right, I might also crop the left a bit to keep it balanced. I'm not sure if I'd crop the top or not. It could help with the overall balance but you'd also lose some of the interesting rocks at the top. I do also find the sunlit area a bit distracting. I'm thinking a vertical composition where you moved forward some to make the pictograph more prominent, excluded the sunlit part and included more at the bottom of he image, might have worked. But without being there myself, that's just a hunch. I think I prefer color over BW here.

Love the shot, and I have to agree with the comments above. The only other thing I would add is to see if you can bring out a little more details in the super dark area inside the structure in the B&W version. Other than that the B&W really makes this shine! Well done with your HDR conversion as well.

That b+w is really nice.

Thanks for the comments and tips so far, guys. I'll take a look at cropping a little. My first reaction to the right crop was that I'd lose part of the storage area (looks like a kiva) but it doesn't really play much of a role here. I would like to keep the far structure under the overhang but that would crop a lot of the sunlit area to the right which is a little distracting.

Grant, I understand what you mean about a little different angle and composition. This shot was somewhat precarious because I'm inside the wall, chimneyed up the wall a little with the tripod legs resting on the built up wall and the sandstone wall (which doesn't have any good ledges), about 3-4 feet above the floor. So I was mostly trying not to fall, not to let the tripod fall, and not knock over the ruin wall, while firing off series of shots. The effort and unique perspective are some of the reason I was hoping this shot worked out.

On my monitor at work these look less saturated and contrasty than I remember at 2am last night. I was trying to be light-handed with the contrast and saturation but these might benefit from a little more.

Kalin, thanks for sharing how you captured this image. Like the HDR effect; looks natural. Have fun working off the earlier comments.

Bill Brennan

I do like the b&w just a little bit better, but both work for me. I agree with John's suggestions, too. This is an excellent view to this place. Keep them comin' Kalin!

This is really great Kalin! I remember looking all over for this place, back before the days of easy information. Never did find it, I'll have to go try again sometime. The comp is working for me as is, though I like John's suggestion of burning the edges a bit. At first I like the top version better, but the B&W is growing on me as I look. I'd be curious to see it with just a little sepia tone, probably not too much though.

To tell the truth, I wasn't too crazy about this until I saw the B&W version. That one is great. It makes me want to spend more time playing around with B&W myself. I might have to invest in a few more plug-ins. Great job. Either way they are both stunning captures, especially if you consider some of the suggestions above.

OK, here is a 4x5 crop of both versions. I also bumped the contrast and color balance a little in the color version, and tweaked the B&W a little. These will serve as references or redoing them from scratch as the HDR processing in the highlight areas left some artifacts. Those would have to be fixed before printing.
Thanks for the comments and suggestions!

Kalin

Ok,maybe I'll post the images too...

and the B&W

I definitely like it more in B&W. The original crop works for me.