Critique Style Requested: Standard
The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Made this image immediately after encountering an aggressive cocked rattlesnake (not uncommon in Badlands) in our path to this site. The leading line attracted me nonetheless.
14mm f/16 1/40 iso 100
I guess I’m trying to understand the significance of the straight white line and how it relates to the mountain behind it. I’m trying to understand what attracted you to it. Maybe it’s the geology of it.
It was a leading line up to the small peak in the LUC to help[ move the eye through the image.
First of all, to my eye this is the best I’ve seen you process an image. I really appreciate the colors and tones along with how you’ve controlled the sky. You could maybe darken the left a touch to retain a bit of detail but that is some personal taste probably and would depend on how it looks. Just an idea.
I do get what Igor is getting at with his comment. My initial reaction was “thats a leading line” so I followed it, hit the small mound on the left and it brought me back to the highlights on the main peak. In that sense it works. Could it be more subtle, probably. You could try to burn it down just a little so it more closely matches the tones of the darker brown areas around it.
We can all be Monday morning quarterbacks, but I’d have been really interested to see a wide angle shot up on the next ridge really playing up those S-curve cracks on the middle mound. That may create a more clean connection as Igor was mentioning.
Bringing this back to where I started though, in my mind, and I don’t see every image, this is the best image you’ve processed that I’ve seen here. Really well done there.
Hi Mario,
I really like this image and, to my eye, the leading line, makes it. Let’s put it that way: if it weren’t there, then the image would still be nice but quite boring. The diagonal provides a great sense of depth whilst allowing the eye to inspect the very interesting cracked earth patterns in the very foreground before moving to exploring the wider landscape “behind” that line. Further, the foreground does not fail to fill the frame nicely with a 14mm lens, as it is large enough. Is it 14mm on a FF?
Sky lighter in the ULC looks realistic to me and good.
And eww… a cocked rattlesnake, you’d see me run in sweats 
Happy enough to visit through other people’s eyes 
Looks great! 
Hi Mario,
I’m new to NPN and have just started looking at images. This one stood out to me. I was particularly drawn to the colors/tones and also the movement created by the curves and mud cracks. I am wondering if you have any intimate scenes of this location? If so, would love to see them.
Welcome to NPN Karen. If you search badlands I did post a few recently.
