Arches come in all sizes in the southwest, but one of the most famous is arguably the smallest. For those not familiar, Windstone Arch in the Valley of Fire St Park, is just a few feet tall and is positioned in a small tunnel in a large rock.
Yea, this has been done over and over, but I certainly enjoyed the "hunt" to find this place. While processing this image I noticed it has a guardian looking after it. Note what appears to be a corpse head underneath the arch!
Critique is certainly welcome. This was a two image stack. Interestingly, being a static scene I thought it would stack without a problem Oh, so wrong. With Photoshop I had some distinct fuzzy banding near the bottom of the image. With Zerene, there were some other areas that didn't align well. Strange.
I saw your square comp post earlier today. I was ready to praise the square idea, for it was a different spin for this iconic scene. I noticed some out of focus extreme corner issues that didn't really matter in the scene. Otherwise i was really into the square comp.
This scene looks dead on captured. The scene looks more iconic, but in the end feels really nice to my eye. Lighting seems optimal and you have captured and processed it well.
Here is the square comp. What is your preference? Frankly, I sorta link the square comp since it focuses more on the arch. However, for those who haven't been to this location, maybe the full aspect ratio provides more scale to the scene?
Posted by Scott Fricke on June 14, 2014 at 10:00 AM
Great comp Ken. I like the square crop except it seems a little tight at the top so I'd had to go with the first post. Really neat location, I haven't seen anything from here before.
Posted by Doug Koepsel on June 15, 2014 at 1:40 PM
I prefer the square crop that eliminates the top roof, but I would add back the bottom. The honeycomb on the far wall is intriguing in itself.
Discussion
7 repliesYea, this has been done over and over, but I certainly enjoyed the "hunt" to find this place. While processing this image I noticed it has a guardian looking after it. Note what appears to be a corpse head underneath the arch!
Critique is certainly welcome. This was a two image stack. Interestingly, being a static scene I thought it would stack without a problem Oh, so wrong. With Photoshop I had some distinct fuzzy banding near the bottom of the image. With Zerene, there were some other areas that didn't align well. Strange.
Nikon D7100
Nikon 16-85 f 13
I saw your square comp post earlier today. I was ready to praise the square idea, for it was a different spin for this iconic scene. I noticed some out of focus extreme corner issues that didn't really matter in the scene. Otherwise i was really into the square comp.
This scene looks dead on captured. The scene looks more iconic, but in the end feels really nice to my eye. Lighting seems optimal and you have captured and processed it well.