The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
I love lenticular clouds. When I saw one in Yosemite’s Tuolumne Meadows, I decided to become more serious about photography. When I saw these clouds in Desolation Wilderness earlier this year, I was similarly moved. I wanted to capture the reflection in the Lake of the Woods, but it is a big lake with a lot of movement, so I needed an ND filter. Does the picture capture the uniqueness of these clouds?
Specific Feedback
Is this the right composition for the story I want to tell? Anything else you would have done differently?
Technical Details
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I too enjoy lenticulars. We tend to get them stacking up over, or just to the side of, our big mountains here in the Northwest. I love the reflection too, it adds a lot of beauty to the water, and I think the composition works well to show that.
Was the ND to smooth out the water? While I like that effect, I wish the clouds in the sky were sharper to really emphasize their lenticular shape. I wonder about two images, one with a shorter shutter speed for the sky, and this one for the water?
Nice job on handling those highlights. I could see opening those deepest shadows just a bit though.
Stunning moment in a great setting! For me, especially with the issue of the water movement, the story is in the clouds, I long to see an exposure of the clouds that doesn’t show movement and that reaches up higher to capture their massiveness. That would reduce the amount of water and move the horizon below the middle, which would make a more dramatic image. The tree reflections are a very strong element so I would want to keep as much of them as practical.
In a case like this, a vertical pano can often capture more of the clouds and enough FG – or a horizontal pano with the camera in portrait orientation.
Thanks John and Diane. The slow exposure was necessary to capture the reflection. I agree that I might have skipped that to better capture the clouds. As for making a pano, that would seem to create the same problem of cloud movement, although I suppose I could use a single cloud exposure. I think that would require masking in Photoshop and I try to avoid that.
The first thing that comes to my mind and that caught my eye was the wonderful color contrasts between the blue and rich yellows. The reflection in the water, although blurred, serves as a great line leading the eye into the scene, right up to the tall trees on the distant shore, which link up with the lenticulars in the sky, and they continue that line taking the eye right up to the top of the frame, all the while satisfying the viewer with crisp detail. Its hard to convey the shear size of the sky and lenticular clouds, and perhaps less foreground could have helped that, but it a great photo as it is.
Lovely image with the caveats mentioned by the others. My first impression was since you wanted to show the cloud’s uniqueness, the longer exposure counteracts that. The ones over the mountains still retain a lot of the lenticular look, but the ones off to the sides lack that definition. I still really like the image.
Hi Brad,
First off, welcome to the Landscape Forum. Count me as a fan of lenticulars as well; although I have only had the good fortune to witness them twice while visiting the White Mountains in NH. I quite like what you came away with here although; I think @John_Williams is correct about trying two exposures next time; a faster SS for the sky and a longer SS for the water; and then blending them. The clouds are gorgeous in this scene as is the reflection. Thanks for sharing and I hope to see more of your work as well as your comments on other photographer’s work. Nicely done.
Welcome Brad. Great to have you here.
I too love lenticular clouds and the Sierra range is a great place for them. I also love the Desolation Wilderness and I must say, this is a really great scene that you’ve captured. You had great light to work with, an interesting and beautiful scene, and of course, lenticular clouds. Eye candy!
I would agree with what some of the others have said abut capturing a long exposure to smooth out the water but a fast exposure to really zone in on the shapes of the clouds to keep them from distorting. It would be very easy to brush in the water in PS on this scene keeping all of the trees and the sky sharp. Maybe next time. Either way, this is a gorgeous spot with great clouds and great color in the clouds. I hope you don’t mind but I took your image into LR for a couple of quick adjustments.
I warmed the entire scene. That’s simply my personal preference for this scene. Not much, but enough for a difference. Exactly 7 points of WB and 4 points of magenta hue. I love the blue but wanted just a smidgen more yellow and orange pop.
I cropped some of the bottom off. Again, this is just personal preference but if you want the viewer to zone in on those lenticular clouds I thought removing some of the foreground would help with that and it just seemed like a lot of foreground to me.
I brought up the black point which was blown and off the left side of the histogram. I also brought up the shadows a little bit. I only targeted the trees and rock areas. Blacks +9, shadows +15
There are some weird smudges in the left portion of the sky where I’ve put some arrows. They look like processing errors. To see them clearly, you need to blow the image up. There are 4 or 5 of them but I’ve only put an arrow on three of them.
There are dust bunnies aplenty. Again, I’ve circled just a few of them but there are several.
I don’t actually know if I prefer the cropped version or not but I thought I would would share it with you anyway. Round file it if it’s not to your liking. As always, these are just suggestions.
It’s a beautiful scene you’ve shared with us and a couple of tweaks will certainly make this a little bit better. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks for posting, Brad.
Very helpful information. I have become lazy about editing. I don’t closely inspect images unless I am going to print them. I’m definitely going to incorporate some of your suggestions.
Welcome to NPN. I just wanted to comment on the two shot merge idea. One thing I would look out for is for the reflection to mirror the clouds accurately since one of the shots is a long exposure. I haven’t done this sort of thing so it’s just a hypothesis. Sometimes clouds move quickly and sometimes not.
