Clouds at Gerês

Hey everybody.

So laste sunday i went to Gerês natural park trying to shot the sunrise ate Vilar de furnas but the low clouds were so dense that i ended up wandering the park looking for some interesting light. On one of the road side viewpoints i saw some clouds moving on the mountain of the park and this image was shooted there.

Thanks, cheers.

What technical feedback would you like if any?

Any feedback, but would you guys slow down the shutter to capture some movement of the clouds?

What artistic feedback would you like if any?

Composition and post processing of colours.

Pertinent technical details or techniques:

(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)

105mm - f11 - 1/5s @ISO50
I pulled the exposure, color corrected, and pulled the saturation a bit up too.

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Joao, very lovely atmosphere. I think you have processed it well, too. Have you tried flipping this horizontally? I think it has a better left-to-right flow that way.

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Hi @Adhika_Lie thanks for the feedback.
Never thought of mirroring images ahah I ll give it a try a post it later.

Thanks again,
Cheers.

João, I like how the clouds are hugging the mountain and the layered ridges. You’ve caught some fine atmospherics here.

Nice atmosphere and light. I think the shutter speed you used works just fine. I like clouds hugging the lee side of the ridges along with the layers of color and tone.
-P

Interesting image João. Nice to capture some atmosphere despite the lack of the hoped for light show!

I’m not a big fan of cloud movement in the scenes, but I do find that killing sharpening a bit with glow can help add to the foggy atmosphere in these type of images. (Example below. I also killed a dust bunny, removed some noise, added contrast to the sky, and a touch of vignette to focus the eye inward.)

Hi @John_Williams thanks for the feedback.
I do like the contrast you give to the sky. I’ll have to add it later. The noise reduction is something that I have to learn a bit more how to do better and this image sure needed a bit.

Thanks again,
Cheers.

I love the diagonal layers in the mountain here. and i am a sucker for shooting in fog, so I really love the mood that it creates here. I think you have already gotten some good advice. I agree with @Adhika_Lie that a horizontal flip is worth considering, and I like @John_Williams advice on the contrast and adding an Orton type glow.

Just for discussion purposes, i decide to take a rework in this direction. i flipped, and added Orton & contrast. I also cooled the image slightly, i like cooler fog in my images. I also cropped in tighter to emphasize the mountains, and cloned away the dark green patch in the corner, which i found distracting. It’s a completely different image, but here it is anyways…

Hey @Ed_McGuirk thanks for the feedback and the rework. I do like the re crop, it really eliminates that dark area.
As for the low contraste and Orton effect, i dont know why but i tend to like more the original contrast, and the Orton effect is still new to me (discoreved it last week only ahaha) im still discovering if i like it on this kind of shot or not.
As far as the mirroring goes it really does make a lot of diference. And as @Adhika_Lie had already proposed it and i never tried it i went and did it, I liked the final image but i didn’t linked it to the site. It was like looking to a diferent place. It feel like swapping skies to me. I understand why its done and why it works, but i’m not really fond of it (at this stage at least).
That being said ill try to re process it this weekend (i hope) and post the result with more constrast on the skies and cropped.

Again thanks for the feedback to all,
Cheers.

P.S.: i apologise if anything i say “sounded” ungratefull. relly hope not becase i think this is why NPN make a diference, people are not “yes mans” here, they say what on their mind.

The re-crop did not eliminate the dark area, I had to clone it away. I’m not sure if your reply has a typo in it, but my rework increases not lowers contrast (brighter whites). Orton is a matter of acquired taste, but it is very popular in landscape image processing these days to add soft glow. It’s worth experimenting with applying it at different opacitys to suit your tastes.

It was bad interpretation and explanation on my part, sorry. Comparing to the original image it seems to have less constrast because the blacks arent as dark.
When i was refering to re crop i was thinking to clone that part too (didn’t mention that, my bad).
I watch some tutorials on Orton effect and tried on a image i have of some waterfalls and it sure has lot of interesting uses. But as you said its a matter of taste, and maybe with time it will start to grow on me.