Another morning in the Badlands. We had a spectacular sunrise, but I’m showing the less flashy shots first so as no to spoil you. Plus I just love a trail shot. After wandering away from some of the folks working a different trail, I found this one and instead of the direct sun they were getting, I got sidelight. Not sure why the guides didn’t herd everyone over here after one saw me shooting this, but I’m the only one who got it. Definitely not the first time that happened on the trip. There was one other guy who struck out on his own and got some amazing images as well, but the other folks were newer and tended to stay planted.
Anyway…this is one of my favorites from the trip. The filtered sun brought up just enough texture and contour to make it interesting and give it depth, but it wasn’t harsh.
Specific Feedback Requested
Ideas for improvement welcome - I have a vertical shot, but thought this wider view served better. Colors look realistic to you?
Technical Details
Tripod and possibly a CPL, but I can’t recall.
Lr for initial RAW edits to stretch the histogram which wasn’t hard to do, actually. A nice S-curve adjustment and some texture, sharpening & nr. No cropping. Ps to use the TK8 panel for masks to use as stencils to do dodging and burning to bring up more of the contour in the rocks. Softly, softly since that light was so smashing. Took the greens down a bit since they were a bit overwhelming.
Hi, Kristen. Your photo simply put me right there on that trail. I stood and admired the beauty before my eyes. Like you, I can’t pass a nice trail view. I think the landscape crop is the right choice here, too. A vertical crop would take away so much of the beauty in the scene. I also like the subdued tones during the sunrise hours. I don’t think I can offer anything to improve the image, but I want to address your question if the colors look realistic. They do look realistic to me, but I wonder whether those mountains in the back could use a bit more saturation. Even though the green saturation was reduced, as you explained, it is still covering 2/3 of the image. Probably a bit more color punch in the mountains would balance out with the green in the foreground. This reminds me a lot of the terrain in the Painted Desert area at Petrified Forest NP. Beautiful image!
I think @Egídio has a good point about saturation of the hills – but then I’m naturally greedy. They are quite amazing, rising out of this little gem of a valley, so I’d give them all the advantage I could. I think tour horizontal format is the best choice here.
So typical of workshops and the main reason I hardly ever go on one – every one I have been on (maybe half a dozen) – on every one I’ve seen something very nice that the leaders were ignoring to give preference to the mundane “expected” shots and tried to point it out, to no avail. (That’s OK – I got the shots.)
Thanks so much @Egídio & @Diane_Miller - saturation is a thing I struggle with sometimes. In this day and age of super saturation everywhere you look, I try not to fall into that trap automatically. That means sometimes I go the other way and though these hills are fairly pale and the light was soft, I’ve added a second shot to the OP.
Usually as part of my finishing an image I run a Saturation/Vibrance mask in the TK8 panel for Photoshop. A saturation mask finds the most saturated pixels and the vibrance mask finds the least. Then you can adjust accordingly - mostly I like to get things balanced so nothing seems out of proportion. For this I ran the mask twice - once for the first shot and a second time just now. The action uses a normal layer, but I sometimes switch it up to see how it looks - soft light or something else can change so much. This is a normal layer, but I felt it put too much color back into the grass so I put the layer in a group with a white mask and used a black brush to paint it out of the foreground, but not entirely. What do you think?
Kris, this is also my favorite from your series. The repost helped to give the hills the depth and realism along with the foreground. Excellent work all around.
Thanks @Diane_Miller - but I think I’m going to stop here. The hills are pretty pastel and light colored IRL, but I can see from a photographic image perspective only that they could take more color and not seem inappropriate. But they aren’t as saturated as the hills by Yellow Mounds so I think parking it firmly in reality will work best for me.
Apologies I haven’t been able to keep up on your travels and images from the Badlands - but must say I’ve been enjoying the trip!
I’m really, really enjoying this one. The composition is just wonderful with the path leading through the beautiful grasses, leading the eye in to the scene. Makes me feel like I’m ready to step right in to the scene.
I like the slight boost in vibrance in the repost, I think your original is probably truer to life. IMHO, one of your strengths (besides the imagery!) are your processing skills. I appreciate the natural look of colors, contrast and luminosity you always seem to produce. For my own work, I probably tend towards the pop of your repost, but more and more appreciate the very natural look - as if it’s what I would have interpreted had I been there.
Your repost is just great. It is good that to find your own way paid off. You have find a very good combination of proportions between the grasslands, hill and sky. I feel very much invited to walk along that trail.
Thanks @Lon_Overacker & @Ola_Jovall - no need to apologize for not keeping up everything that NPN does everyday. It’s tough and even as much as I’m on, I miss stuff all the time.
It’s a funny path to tread between rendering an image true to what it looked like at the time and what might be accepted or expected by viewers. All the advice here has been valuable to find a good image in the end - good for me and good for those who weren’t standing in the field next to me.
Oh and I wanted to walk back there, too, @Ola_Jovall, but unfortunately we had to roll.
