From my February trip to Acadia. No icicles or hanging laundry in this image
While most photographers think of Acadia as being about grand seascapes, or blazing fall color, the thing I love most about Acadia is the variety of color and texture in the rocks. As far as I am concerned, the pink granite of Acadia’s coastline is New England’s version of the colorful sandstone of the American southwest.
I love the way the surf threaded through the colorful rocks, creating a mosaic of shapes.
Ed,
That is a perfect analogy with the pink granite of Acadia and the sandstone of the American southwest; I couldn’t agree more. The bad weather days during your recent trip was definitely your friend here and helped accentuate the beautiful pinks of the granite. Your chosen SS has created some nice textures in the water as it weaves it’s way around the array of stones on the beach. I also like the slightly darker URC as it helps direct the eye to the swirling water. I have been looking at this for a few minutes trying to place the location, but you have me stumped. Is this Little Hunters Beach?
Thanks Ed, yes I forgot to say this was Hunters Beach. @Alan_Kreyger told me he thought the mossy woods along the trail to the beach reminded him of Olympic NP. So you could say Acadia is the northwest and the southwest rolled into one ha ha
Little Hunters is my favorite, but it is on the part of the park loop road that is closed in winter. This Hunters Beach is accessed via a town of Seal Harbor road, so it’s open in winter.
Ed,
This is really a favorite of mine from our recent trip to Acadia. I am looking hard for items to nit pick on this one because I think it really is worth the extra scrutiny. I can’t find a thing I would change. The SS was spot on and the composition is so well balanced and processed. Well done!
This is an excellent image Ed. As is my custom I downloaded this and zoomed out to put it into a rectangle and it came to life even more. I really like those background cliffs and the light on them. I’m pretty familiar with your preferences by now and you do like your image more saturated than I do. In this case I feel that the orange rocks are being a bit too much ‘promoted’ over the rest of the scene. I would dial back the luminosity and saturation as below to reach a better harmony between rocks and foreground. That’s just how I see things, what’s peculiar to me. I suspect that you find it harmonious to your vision.
I love the speckled rocks in this and the color variations within the rocks and boulders. Your composition is strong and I like that you’ve burned the right BG, but I wouldn’t mind seeing the upper rocks on the left being a little less dark. I downloaded it and played with that a little, dodging @ darks 4 @ 20% over the rocks at the top down to the middle left, and then burning @ darks 5 @ 20% just to give it back a little contrast and I think it improved the overall look a bit. I haven’t uploaded it because I deleted it after playing with it. I also love the color purity of the water in this.
@Alan_Kreyger@Igor_Doncov thank you for taking the time to leave a comment, I do appreciate it.
Igor I will be the first to admit that in general my style leans to more saturated images than yours does, although that neither is necessarily good nor bad on either of our parts, it’s pretty subjective as you know. I think what you are trying to say here is that you prefer the colors and saturation to be targeted to accentuate or de-accentuate specific elements in an image, and with that I totally agree.
I loved the color of the warm rocks here which is why I chose to go the route I did. I do see a lot of value in what your reworks does, and it is very effective for that matter. I just chose to make a little louder statement, subjective choice. With that said if you haven’t seen these rocks wet, it can be hard to believe the colors. Here is the un-editted version of this, using auto WB (temp 5900). i understand you can modify it to achieve image objectives, but it’s not like I pumped the heck out of this either. I totally get where you are coming from, and respect your opinion too.
And this un-editted version gives everyone a behind the curtains peek into how much local dodging and burning can accomplish with an image.
Thanks Igor. Someone commented that they wanted to see more detail in the URC dark rocks, but I agree with you that the dark cove sets the stage for the rocks to stand out. I actually spent a huge amount of time dodging and burning here, in what otherwise might seem like a straight forward overcast day scene
The wet color of the rocks mixing with the creamy water is beautiful, and the framing of the background rock and foreground pebbles works well to highlight that beauty.
Oooh, very cool textures in the water around the red rocks. You struck the perfect shutter speed. The colors don’t look overdone at all - very realistic (even though I’ve never been there, lol). What does strike me is the dark URC, which makes this feel unbalanced to me. I think the energy is of the moving water across the frame, so maybe a more pano crop would be nice. I took the liberty of doing that, and giving it a bit of a vignette to bring the attention to the wonderful water (looks like the colors got a bit saturated - you’ll have to ignore that). To my eye, this feels more balanced.
