Gothic on the 25th of July

For those of you considering going to Crested Butte, I have posted a few photos showing the amount of wildflowers still available. Please let me know what you think of the photos, composition, etc. I know that a lot of photographers don't like the crimson sky sometimes created by a polarizer, however, these skies persisted even without. I did use a polarizer for most of the photos, but I had zilch for atmosphere. Let me know what you think, I would appreciate it.

Here is another shot of Gothic Mountain later in the day.

Here is a shot of Mount Bellview. The flowers here are just starting, look for them to really pop this coming week.

Here is an intimate portrait of the Orange Paintbrush in the same area as above. Also, there is White Paintbrush just starting to bloom.

And last, here is another intimate portrait, but of Elephants Head. The dew on these flowers made them irresistible for me to photograph, but I only had about fifteen minutes before the light spilled into the valley and washed out the colors. Thanks in advance for any helpful critiques or pointers!

The first has great light and a great composition, but you beat me to it with the polarizer. The almost black sky in the upper right doesn't work for me. If you can try to lighten that up, I think it would improve the shot a lot. I'd only use the polarizer with the specific goal of reducing glare, not to alter the skies. You can always darken the skies later if you like that effect but it's a lot more difficult to lighten the dark skies produced by a polarizer and get a natural look and not bring out noise. The composition in the 4th shot is nice, but I think I'd like it better if it was darkened up quite a bit. The lighting and comp doesn't quite work for me in #2 and #3.

First things first, go look up the definition of crimson.

I like the close ups of the Paintbrush and Elephant's Head, but not the uneven polarization of the skies in the others.
As Grant noted, a polarizer simply doesn't work well with wide angle lenses and skies.

I agree that the polarization is too strong for my tastes. Otherwise, these are beautiful landscapes. I also like the closeups of the flowers - your choice of DOF works nicely and you have great color and detail in the flowers.

I agree about the polarizer. I recall someone posted a technique recently to equalize your sky tones if you have this problem.

You're right Todd, I should have said "Sapphire". Thanks to everybody for their comments. A couple of details, on the third shot I didn't use a polarizer, but I did use a soft ND 2 stop filter. I agree the shots were overpolarized, however the polarizer wasn't used for the sky, although it did make it more interesting to me. I put on the polarizer because the sunflowers were a little hazy, I think it was because they are all facing slightly different angles and the refracted light was just too much. You can see in the first photograph that the sunflowers are as bright as Gothic Mountain, and I was using a 2 stop ND filter over Gothic. If I had one, I would have turned a second ND filter upside down to even out the sunflowers brightness levels. Any thoughts on what I could have done different to make the shots work? Also, I believe in getting it right in the camera. I don't like to fix things up in Photoshop aside from a crop or unsharp masking, and if I'm really feeling like going for the gusto I may make a levels adjustment. I just don't agree with too much photoshop except for real creative effect. My thoughts on HDR are tha tif it helps the dynamic range in the photo closer to what our eyes can see, I like it, to a degree. Any thoughts?

"I don't like to fix things up in Photoshop.... I just don't agree with too much photoshop except for real creative effect."

As I noted in a later post by you, all digital images need to be optimized to one degree or another using an image editor. It's just a fact of digital life, especially if you shoot in RAW. You can choose not to use it, but the images you take with great potential will suffer for it. As time passes, more and more folks with your beliefs are 'seeing the light' so to speak. It's beginning to dawn on them that using an image editor is not a crutch and cannot make bad images look good, but instead simply a tool to help achieve their vision. Just like the old darkroom days!

I agree, the polarization in the sky is not good (I ruined almost an entire shoot at the tetons because of this so don't feel bad). This gave me an idea of blending two shots...one polarized for the flowers and one un-polarized for the sky, this may be obvious for others here but I've never seen it mentioned, I know I'll give it a try next time I'm out.

I also don't like the dark mid ground and bright foreground in #1, it does not feel natural.

Have we ever shared raw files in this forum to let others try different editing techniques and share the results? I'd be interested to see how that turns out.

#2 the sky is too crazy blue
#3 the foreground is too bright again
#4 the reds/greens feel dull
#5 is very nice :)

Your compositions are nice, just need to work on the editing (and the polarization) photoshop is a great tool that can lead to very good (natural looking) shots. It simply take the right method. Let me know if you need any help Keith, totally willing to help.

Thanks David. I took a peek at your website and have to say that you have some amazing shots. Very nice. How does your online business do, if you don't mind me asking?

I like the coup in the second one a lot, but agree with others about using the polarizer.

Thanks Keith, I haven't made any sales through just the website, just from local contacts that select the images from the website as artwork in medical office buildings, which is doing fairly well