This image was shot in Central Baja California about 2 months ago during one of my offroad camping trips. A key to these desert shots, I’m finding out, is a good sky. Unfortunately the sky is cloudless for half the year. On this particular morning there were a few clouds and I took advantage of the situation. Let’s put it this way - there are more agaves down there than clouds.
I actually have two compositional versions of this image. Which do you prefer and why?
Hands down the first one for me, Igor. In the first one, the relative size between the agave and the cactus is more pleasing because neither dominates and that allows me to explore the entire image. I do agree that this won’t work too well without the clouds. As an aside, is Winter the best time to be in the area, Igor?
I prefer the first one. The agave looks too prominent to my eye in the second. The first looks more balanced and natural to me. Real nice desert scene.
Igor, I also prefer the first one for the balance and size of the agave. I also prefer the slightly darker shadows in the first. I do like this desert scene as presented.
@Adhika_Lie. I suspect that the light in Baja is similar to what people look for in Death Valley. As far as I know most of the workshops in DV are during the winter, except for a brief period of wildflowers.
The storms that roll through SoCal and even Central California manifest themselves as clouds in Baja, which extend down about 1/2 way. Much of Baja is unfenced and hardly inhabited so that you can drive down the two highways and photograph. The main highway is uninteresting for the first 200 miles but at El Rosario it suddenly turns to magic. The Sea of Cortez highway is more like DV, dry with less plant life, a great area to shoot cracked mud against the blue sea. It gets good south of San Felipe. The best time for photography is November - February.
It’s interesting that you should mention that because the original was more ‘balanced’ in that way and I cropped some of it off. I did so to add emphasis to the sky and remove it from the agave. It’s just a personal choice. But yes, I can show it with more space below the agave.
Igor, I like the composition of the first, mainly because there’s more room at the bottom and right. However it seems the light/exposure of the second is better.
I like the first one the best, partly for reasons others have mentioned, such as a better balanced comp, and having more space in front of the agave. But I really like it better because of the white border around the image. I think the border makes the clouds pop more, and overall the image seems to have more impact with the border. It’s interesting because I never use borders with my own images (not sure why), but this gives me food for thought. It would be an interesting comparison if you could please repost the first image, but without the border, and put it below the one with the border, so they can be compared side by side.
Otherwise, the light is really nice in these images, and I just love the rows of saguaros fading off into the distance. These would make for killer B&W images as well, I suspect.
Good point, Ed. As you point out, there are differences between the two images other than their composition. Yes, one has border and the other does not. The shadows are darker in one than the other. The blue in the sky is darker in one than the other. The truth is that one is not a crop of the other. They were taken a few minutes apart at the same camera settings and yet the light changing quickly at the same time. I could have processed them to appear more similar but I really didn’t want to go to the effort. I also didn’t add a border to one and not the other to influence the outcome. I usually add the border to images that I consider to be ready for sharing. The other one was a working copy.
When I come back from a shoot I don’t go through that type of processing in deciding which to choose. Perhaps I should. Do you? That’s actually an interesting discussion in itself, one I have never heard mention. How do you decide which is your best and which ones to pass up? To be honest, I often err on this matter because I come up with decent images from my archives that were shelved.
Anyway, here is the comparison you asked for, a comparison of border to border. And btw those are not Saguaros, they’re Cardons. But they do look alike superficially.
Igor, I’ll be the different one here and say that I really like how your second version accentuates the Agave. I also think that the slight reduction in sky adds nicely to the emphasis on the plants.
