This is another image from my time poking at Iceland’s glaciers this past summer. Here, where the ice flow comes to an end, a river is born.
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I hope I am not going to the well too often here.
This is one of my most questionable maybes from the trip. This isn’t anywhere near my favorite from the trip, but I think it does tell an interesting story. Is that story interesting enough to overcome the busyness of the ice front? Not sure at all.
Kind of tempted to try this one as a B&W.
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
Sony A7R III; Tamron 17-28 mm 2.8 at 17 mm; ISO 50, f/16 at 1/10 sec.
Minor contrast and tone adjustments, color cast correction, and a slight strengthening of the blue-green in the ice. All work done in Lightroom/Photoshop, with noise reduction (sky) in Topaz DeNoise and moderate sharpening in Topaz Sharpen. I did end up with a minor halo effect at the edges of the rock/ice and sky, which I adjusted using the Clone Stamp tool in PS.
The busyness of the ice front is actually one of the things I like most about the image, the colors, textures and diagonal lines combine to make a nice semi-abstract look. This is not a view of a glacier that is commonly seen, so I like it for that too.
If the story is about the birth of a river, for me the waterfall sort of blends into the ice too much, despite it’s brighter luminosity. I just wish that I could see a bit more of the waterfall (or maybe it’s runoff) if you really wanted tell a stronger story about the birth of river. The ice itself has a strong visual impact, which makes it harder for the waterfall to be the star of the show. If you had moved to the left, you could have shown more of the waterfall, but you would have lost some of the drama in the sky. Tough choice…
A minor distraction is the brightness of the rock near the left frame edge, though that could be addressed with some local burning.
With that said, this is a very dramatic image, the light is wonderful, and I think your high contrast processing has created some nice impact. I think the image works on it’s own level, independent of what the intent of the story was.
I actually like this a lot. Those clouds look like a distant waves in the sea to me and they make the image for me. I think it’s very story-telling and I just love the contrast and the rendering of blue tones here.
This works for me quite well, Jeff. I like the impression of a birth of a river…or the impact of climate change. I also think a B&W, higher contrast version would do well too. And, you’re not going to the well too often. Keep these scenes coming.
I like the color in this. If it were B&W the dark blue sky in the upper left would not be as distinct against the glacier. I really like the blue against the mostly black and white glacier.
And the perspective is unique.
Great image!
I can’t comment on how well a story this tells vs your previous images but as an image this is the best of the tree. The composition is better and the point of view of the glacier is more interesting. I agree that the fg ice detail is an advantage and not a detriment. I converted it to b&w to better show off the composition. I often do that to study the tonality. The lower left area is overly dark but the blacks have been clipped so there isn’t much to be done in some sections.
All said above – this is a strong image and the brooding sky fits well. I agree that seeing the waterfall more clearly, along with a bit of the stream it is flowing into, would be good.
Thank you @Ed_McGuirk@Adhika_Lie@David_Bostock@Mark_Muller@Igor_Doncov and @Diane_Miller for you continued thoughtful (and kind) comments. I’ll admit, hearing pretty broad positive feedback has made me re-evaluate this image a bit, and may it is better than initially thought. Maybe, though, I need to rework the title such that it doesn’t emphasize the “beginning” of the river. How about (cue The Doors) “This is the End”, LOL.
In an attempt to make the cascade stand out a boit more, I set a midtones mask and applied a burn layer to the ice area outside of the waterfall. I also burned the bright rocks on the left side, and tried to lighten the dark lower left corner a bit, though those darks are indeed clipped. In exposing this image, I used the bright whites of the water as my guardrail and by exposing just short of clipping those highlights, a wasn’t able to preserve those dark lower left shadows. Any preference for the revision over the original post?
