Here’s another view of the Painted Hills, here in Oregon. This was taken in 2013.
Specific Feedback Requested
I posted another view of the Painted Hills a week or so ago and received some excellent feedback and fantastic alternate crops from @David_Haynes and @Kris_Smith. It’s great to see other folk’s perspective and eye.
So, I thought I’d post this one and open it up to similar scrutiny. What would you change? How is the comp? Would you change it? Anything goes.
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
Canon 5D III, EF 500mm f/4, 1/200 sec @ f/11, ISO 160, tripod, polarizer.
All processing done in Capture One: Auto Levels on each color channel, slight Highlight reduction, White Balance, Shadow, and White tweaks…
Excellent angle of view here, David. Leaves it open to questionable perspective options of aerial, macro, or from normal ground level view as you’d photographed it…
Very nice extract from those hills. The image is tack sharp. I have always wondered what caused those black marks on the hills. It’s as though they were inked and then the ink ran spread. The colors are very natural as I recall. Most people play with the colors. It really does look like paint that ran across the canvas before it dried. I can’t see any way to significantly improve this without playing with the colors and I don’t think that would be better. You could crop off the top a bit to spread the pattern more evenly but you’d end up with a panoramic aspect ratio. Great image.
Easily your best yet from the Painted Hills David. I love the leaking and smeared black dots, and of course the main red eye of the picture, perfectly placed. It almost looks like an Indian Head dress with bird feathers coming off the right side side. I don’t think I would change anything about this one. Well done!
Really beautiful, abstract image, David! I wouldn’t change a thing! It all is so fun to look around at! I would love to see this in person some day. It looks awesome!
You might want to raise the white point a bit (and compensate the color saturation) and see how that looks. That often breathes energy into an image but doesn’t always work.
With the flat light, you convey a mystical abstract. The saturated red spot looks like that on pictures of Jupiter.
Not saying it is an improvement, but an alternative way to take this is to unflatten the light and burn one side of the slopes to convey a more 3D look. That removes some of the mystical abstraction, I realize. Like Igor noted, I added some high-end luminosity overall in the attachment.
Just wondering, where was your vantage point for this image? The visitor overlook?
Dick, I like what you did here; it has a bit more depth to it. I will play around with it. Yes, it was from the visitor overlook. One of my favorite places to shoot with a long lens.
Scott, thank you for your comments. I appreciate it. I plan to try to get there again this spring.
Thanks again Dick, I played around with luminosity ranges and came up with something similar to yours. I wanted to keep it subtle…posted above. Thanks again.
Beautiful work and I do like the repost a bit better.
People think I’m strange when I say it but to me the black marks in the painted hills always remind me of the seeds inside a Kiwi fruit when it’s cut open but then again it might just be me.
I’m so late here, and just have to add how much I love this!! It’s fascinating to see the elements here brought out with a telephoto lens! All of the interpretations work for me!
