Please share your immediate response to the image before reading the photographer’s intent (obscured text below) or other comments. The photographer seeks a genuinely unbiased first impression.
Questions to guide your feedback
What is your initial reaction to the image itself as a independent entity?
Does the overall presentation satisfy you?
Do you feel it is technically well made?
How might you have approached the subject differently?
If it speaks to you, why and what does it say?
Other Information
Please leave your feedback before viewing the blurred information below, once you have replied, click to reveal the text and see if your assessment aligns with the photographer. Remember, this if for their benefit to learn what your unbiased reaction is.
Image Description
Pools of morning light were showing selectedly over the landscape on this morning. The clouds were in two layers: thin stratus above and occasional cumulus below, both from the direction of the La Sal Mountains. An opening in the stratus clouds to the south-east allowed he south face of the butte to light up.
Photography is about light. Light motivated the processing.
Technical Details
ISO 400, f-8.0, 1/1600, 34MM on a 24-70 lens.
This where it started after converting to B&W preset 07.
Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
Conceptual: Feedback on the message and story conveyed by the image.
Emotional: Feedback on the emotional impact and artistic value of the image.
Technical: Feedback on the technical aspects of the image, such as exposure, color, focus and reproduction of colors and details, post-processing, and print quality.
I masked the area along the horizon and for a narrow Zone 2 and dodged the blacks. Then made narrow Zone 3 mask and dodged some of the lighter darks to increase the contrast of background areas. I finished this one with a lightened gold tone I have for comparison to the one above that @Bonnie_Lampley didn’t care for.
I then used the amount slider on my selenium toning preset and set it at 50 - fro 100. Seeing both of the selenium versions I believe the lighter one is better, less in you face.
A lot to really like here on this scene, Guy. I especially like the singular isolated butte with the vast open area surrounding it…
I can truly say I do not recognize this site…
Only thoughts for change was a bit more space on the left side and bring the overall whites down maybe…no nits just ideas… .
My initial reaction is one of power and defiance. It looks like a rising clenched fist. It’s massive and doesn’t really have any graceful curves. Stability. Immobility. That’s what comes to mind. It really has something to say and that’s what I like about it.
I don’t have much in the way of technical suggestions. I suppose you could add a bit more drama by darkening some of the more distant shadows like that grey ridge line that runs through the center. That’s what AA would have done.
Now that I see the original I would have raised the lighter areas on the plain but kept the dark areas as they were.
I get a feeling of power and majesty from the butte. It’s the ruler, surveying it’s kingdom. The light is gorgeous. Certainly, it is technically very well done. As far as how I might have done it differently, I can’t say at all, not having been there. I might have imagined a different story and taken a different tack, but who knows?
The cool toning feels odd to me, though. I think it’s because the feeling of majesty that I get is a positive emotion and the cool toning doesn’t match that positivity. A warmer tone would work better for me, but that is simply because of the story I see and the associations with that story.
I really like this image. The placement of the butte off center gives the feeling of it dominating the surrounding terrain and the far horizons give the needed sense of scale. The tonality is very well handled.
I do agree with @Bonnie_Lampley that it would be worth exploring a warm toning. Or perhaps a duo tone would work
I have a question about the processing. In the starting image there’s a halo around parts of the edge of the butte, where it is next to the sky. This happens to me pretty commonly when I have clarity applied to this kind of image. In the final image you’ve done a great job of getting rid of the halo. What’s your approach in cases like this?
@Paul_Breitkreuz
Look closely along the skyline.
Re: spacing on the left. There may have been something to the left I didn’t like or just preferred it this way at the time. It is on a tripod, so I would have considered the whole frame.
BTW, 1969 Hot Rod Magazine Championship Drag Races V Stock Trophy, in a 49 Chevy Sedan Delivery Van named Halfast. 239 flathead, straight 6, 3 the column. I lived in Orange.
@Igor_Doncov
“I don’t have much in the way of technical suggestions. I suppose you could add a bit more drama by darkening some of the more distant shadows like that grey ridge line that runs through the center. That’s what AA would have done.”
I agree that need to be darkened now that you mention it. As to AA’s opinion, whichever of us sees him first needs to ask. :^)
@Bonnie_Lampley
I’ll have to think on the toning, but I will try some variations. The default B&W color always seems a point or two yellow - yes I’m calibrated.
It is a cross-tone (duo-toned, I suppose) to imitate a dilute selenium toned silver print style that goes from blue-ish shadow to slightly magenta-ish highlights. I have always liked the look and adapted it from Minor Whites recipe in his little yellow book Zone System Manual back in the 70’s.
If it helps, it was a cold morning. ;^)
@WillR
I used the clone stamp method, see Shuback, or Bagshaw, or Dave Kelly.
Scott Davenport shows a intersect masking technique for LR that I just found but haven’t tried yet.
If you have newer versions of Lumenzia or TKPanel they have edge masking tools that help out.
Guy, what a small world, eh?..as a side note to our drag racing the photographer who frequented OCIR in Irvine was a a person by the name of Richard Shute. He went on to own a photo business down in Carlsbad, Ca. called North Coast Photographic Services. https://northcoastphoto.com/
He still does my E-6 film processing to this day. I’ve attached a photo he took of me racing at OCIR in the Pro-Gas class that ran on a 9.80 ET.
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