D800, 14mm, one take.
Saturn and Jupiter
Taken a couple weeks ago.
Welcome back Dan. I’m really enjoying the colors of the blue hour here, how the clouds radiate and make the planets glow. Personally I would darken the foreground since there is not a lot going on to enhance the composition. It would help draw the attention to the sky which is what I feel is the real subject, plus it would make it feel a bit more night-like. Maybe even cool it down a little. Nice work!
Thanks, David.
Raising the Fg is not natural in the light at the time, so you I agree somewhat, I raised it PP, the sky in that amazing place was as is.
I tried to bring up Playa mud since it is also amazing.
Good critique.
1 Like
Dan, this image has a really nice mood to it. Sometimes I think these night-scape images are more difficult to critique than day time landscapes. For many nightscapes there seems to be wide range of subjective opinions about sky colors, and the luminosity of foregrounds. For me, I don’t necessarily subscribe to these things needing to be “realistic looking” per se. I think there is more latitude for artistic interpretation of nightscapes than there is for daytime images. In some regards, night-scapes are sort of like B&W, perhaps there is more room for interpretation.
I think that with the yellow and red twilight glow, I lean more to your brighter foreground luminosity than @David_Kingham darker rework. The sky feels more like early twilight instead of a later twilight or deeper night. And since you are trying to bring up detail in the playa, then I would clone away the tire tracks in the lower right side, they attract too much attention. I think the sky looks great, both color and luminosity.
1 Like
This is a wonderful night scape image, Dan. It is had to strike a balance between having details in the landscape along with the night time sky, but I think this works rather nicely. The gradations of color in the sky are gorgeous and I like the way the clouds fan out across the frame.
My only suggestion would be to concur with @Ed_McGuirk about the tire tracks. This must have been a great evening!
Beautiful sky and I like the foreground. I would pick a middle ground between the original and David’s presentation, leaning a bit toward the original side of it. I also agree about the tracks. Good to see you back.
That combination of sky color with the stars is gorgeous! Alvord is on my list to visit; I really need to get down there one of these days.
Looks like this one is just going to have opinions vary; my preference would be @David_Kingham’s because it looks more natural to my eye.
Nightscapes are like this, viewers have many different and subjective reactions. In the end, multiple interpretations would work for different viewers.