A Landscape?

Image Critiques Abstract Nature Critiques
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Critique Style Requested: Initial Reaction

Please share your immediate response to the image before reading the photographer’s intent (obscured text below) or other comments. The photographer seeks a genuinely unbiased first impression.

Questions to guide your feedback

As usual I struggle with the abstract titles - especially when choosing “Initial Response” as even this title may influence the viewer. I could say more, or nothing… so I’ll stop here.

Other Information

Please leave your feedback before viewing the blurred information below, once you have replied, click to reveal the text and see if your assessment aligns with the photographer. Remember, this if for their benefit to learn what your unbiased reaction is.

Image Description

At some point I may post the vertical orientation as that might give the viewer a wee bit more of a clue, maybe.

I captured a number of ICM images during my trip to Sonora Pass some weeks ago now. Many of them from some great bark structure of the Western Juniper. This is one of them.

Technical Details

Nikon D800E, 28-300mm @180mm f/11 .4s iso 100. Single ICM frame, very slightly cropped and rotated.

Specific Feedback

Very curious as to what you see, if anything; you’re first impression.

I see the horizontal orientation perhaps as as a rolling landscape on Mars… in a sandstorm? The vertical? Not such an impression - perhaps motion blur of some vertical sandstone walls or something…

Also curious about the colors and processing. I think I could bump up the color/saturation, maybe even contrast? What say you?

As always your comments and feedback are always appreciated. thank you!

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Without looking at the title it reminded me of a late summer dried out prairiescape, Lon. I love the light that looks like it’s seeping through the hills from below.

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Hi Lon, very moody abstract. I thought it was dunes at first glance. I can see now that it’s ICM (at least, I think it is!), but the subject isn’t the object :slight_smile: so to me it doesn’t matter what it was. I think of “first light” or “last light,” as the shapes and light evoke the soft beginning or ending of a day, maybe as the sunlight interacts with farm hills. Fun to think about!

4

Knowing you are a trickster, my first impression was that my first impression would be wrong. But I definitely feel a hilly landscape here – the Palouse or … oh, wait, it could be one of the rolling hill aerial views I sometimes see, with some turbulence just as I press the shutter. Whatever the heck it is (or was), it doesn’t matter! It is an absolutely gorgeous collection of flowing lines, tonalities and shadows! I can’t imagine it as anything but a horizontal. The light falloff toward the back is wonderful!

Whatever you tell me it “really was”, I’m not gonna believe you. It is what it IS!

5

Lon, this looks like flowing water. I’m enjoying how both the “humps” and the luminosity vary from lower left towards upper right. Overall I get a warm, pleasant and inviting feeling.

6

Yes, titling an image is a problem. After reading it I see this as a warm version of a Palouse landscape ( I always think Palouse LeTrec, lol). Had you not titled it I might have seen this as a series of waves. Or based on color I might associate with flowing lava. Or even Music! Actually, seeing this as music is the most rewarding of the bunch.

1 Like
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Lon, just terrific! This reminds me of rolling hills but during late Autumn early winter. I like the framing and the tonal changes from lighter foreground to darker background. To me you nailed the flow of the image.