Canyon Life #2

Image Critiques Landscape Critiques
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52D2782SQ-npn.jpg2298×2298 1.51 MB

Critique Style Requested: Standard

The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.

Description

CA Highway 140 follows the Merced River Canyon for just over 17 miles, crossing over it twice before reaching the border of Yosemite National Park. In my younger days I would be making this drive in the dark in order to be in Yosemite for sunrise. Now, more times than not, I’m usually taking a more leisurely drive, stopping many times in the canyon to photograph various subjects, including of course the river, the geology the flora - whatever strikes my eye . Several times I’ve made the trip specifically to photograph in the canyon and never actually go in to the park.

I don’t know about any of you, but I could photograph in places like this non-stop, forever. The only thing stopping that, sleep, food, money and time… ha ha. I love this place. It’s so hard to leave. In fact, whenever I’m heading home from a trip to Yosemite, the hardest part is knowing I need to get home, and knowing I’ll stop to make more photographs. Ask my wife. :slight_smile: “Hi honey, it’s 3pm and I’m leaving the valley… should be home in about 3 hrs…” 2 hrs later… “Hi honey, sorry, I stopped a couple of times… I should be home by 8 or so…” Never trust a photographer when it comes to time management.

This is one such little scene that makes me pull over every time.

Specific Feedback

I’m interested in your thoughts on colors, saturation and general processing. As with processing many images, one can spend too much time and real quickly stop seeing those color casts, etc. I usually have the most trouble with the greens and yellows. And so without tweaking any more I’ll put this out there to see what you think.

Comments and feedback on the composition, crop or anything that you see might need fixin’, please let me know. Thanks for your comments and suggestions!

Technical Details

Nikon D800E, 28-300mm @180mm, f/20 1s iso100. Single frame cropped to square.

3 Likes
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Gorgeous image, Lon. So many different elements, and all of them beautifully captured. About the only suggestion I can think of might be using a polarizer to see what effect it might have. Of course, you may have done that.

1 Like
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Brilliant colors against the gray rocks Lon. Reminds me of fireworks. Love it.

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That looks awesome, Lon. What a beautiful scene.

I love how the greens stand out from the rocks. The colors are really great. I wouldn’t change anything.

That sounds familiar to my wife, too. :rofl:

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Lon, I really like the scene as presented here without any cropping changes. You might try applying a polarizer effect that @Bill_Chambers mentions. I use the one in NIK to see if it adds anything at times.
Just a thought and no nits at all… :cowboy_hat_face:

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Lon, That Yosemite National Park must be a wonderful place to be in making these kind of stunning images. You find your images along the road and not specially off the road. That’s because you have an eye for the smaller which are often even more beautiful than the astonishing mountains or waterfalls. This one I like for its light on the green bushes and composition.
I have a question for you. What is in your opinion the difference between your and my light.
Ben

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I think it looks fine as is, and I love the way the rocks and water are a natural frame to showcase the grass and tree.

I’m curious, is this a recent image? The vegetation is fairly yellow (not in a bad way), but I find that to be true when the growth is new (and then more traditional green as the season progresses).

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Hi Lon, your image stopped me instantly in my initial scrolling this morning. I love small intimate scenes like this, and look to develop more of this skill myself. I think you’ve done a good job of differentiating greens and yellows in the center group (the main characters, as I see it). I like the darker hues of the mosses on the upper and lower right, letting them recede a bit. Just wonder if it would be good to darken the other mosses similarly at the top and top right, as they seem to be close enough in hue that they compete for my attention a bit? Not sure, but it might have more of a framing effect. Just a thought though, cuz this is a beauty!

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You got me laughing out loud at the office with, “Never trust a photographer when it comes to time management.” You got that right. Forget the hour, I don’t even know what day it is sometimes when I’m on a shoot for a few days. I always tell my wife that I’ll be home on such and such a day and she always reminds me not to lie to her. :grin:
The first thing I noticed was the green lizard crawling out of the water in the LRC with it’s tail still in the water. OK, maybe a moss lizard. I think the greens and yellows are good leaning slightly yellow cast but I’m on my work computer so all bets are off for accuracy. I think this is a well composed scene with the center of image taken up by the the foliage, the bottom third of the scene taken up with meandering water and the top portion of the scene taken up with interesting rock cracks and moss. The only thing that catches my eye is the dark cutout/hole on the very right edge about a third of the way up from the bottom. I’m not sure you could do anything about that and it’s not that distracting. I’m the only one who’s mentioned it so far so it may just be me. :joy:
Besides, maybe that’s where the lizard lives. Beautiful scene, Lon and I agree about spending time on the river either going to Yosemite or coming home from Yosemite.

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This is a gorgeous intimate scene, Lon. The amount of different shades of green scattered throughout the image is amazing and makes this very inviting to me. So glad this caught your eye and you stopped and captured it for the rest of us to enjoy. The colors, saturation and processing all look great to me. I particularly like the soft delicate reflection in the water. This looks great; no suggestions from me.

I hear you on the bad time management that we photographers seem to have as there is always going to be one more stop for an image that catches our eye. Fortunately my wife is very understanding as well.

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Just lovely, Lon. The color, hue, and saturation all look fine to me. Like Ed, I love the delicate reflection, plus the rocks seen beneath the water.