This image was from Glacier National Park a couple months ago. Since the going to the sun road was closed the entire time we were there we had to make do with hiking outside the park. This was taken right along the side of the road. This is actually a huge rock formation even though it seems intimate. I quickly noticed the jagged crack going down the rock which separated rock face which had two distinctly different tones and colors to them. The lichen adds a splash of wild colors here and there making for an almost abstract type of image but of course everyone knows this is a rock.
Specific Feedback Requested
Any and all feedback welcome.
Technical Details
Z9, 100-400mm lens @ 110mm, f/ll, 1/60th, ISO 320, hand held
Very nice image. I love the abstractness from the lack of scale and the interesting rainbow of colors here that you handled so nicely. My sole recommendation would be to ease back a bit on the sharpening, it feels a tad crunchy. Something else worth trying would be a subtle vignette to just darken the edges slightly, this way the eye won’t be as tempted to leave the scene through the edges, especially the right side with how bright it is.
This is a really interesting abstract in that it has areas that are different than others. It’s a bit more chaotic than your other abstracts in that I don’t sense a pattern or theme to this one. Well, I take that back. There are three wide vertical bars that make up the image - yellow, blue, and white. It takes a bit of studying to get a feel for this one. The colors and textures are wonderful - from the tiny bumps to the jagged edge (whose blue I really like). The only suggestion I have right now is the yellow circle on white in the upper right area. It really draws my eye. But I think it’s the shape more than the color that draws attention. Funny thing is that I get the feeling it was processed to draw attention to it. Wonderful seeing on your part. I probably would have walked right by this.
That’s great David! Love the colors. Did you try positioning the crack in different parts of the frame? It looks good where it is, just curious how it would look over the the left or right.
@Igor_Doncov, @Eric_Bennett, @Cameron_Wilcox, Thanks for your comments on this one. I’ve added an edit that adds a vignette, lowers the sharpening although this was not sharpened very much so I suspect that it’s all of the the tiny little lichen dots that are making this look crunchy, and I rotated it to give a different perspective.
Thanks again for your help on this one.
I like it! Although I think the horizontal version worked as well. Yes, exactly. Certain scenes can become more crunchy looking even with minimal sharpening, like forests, sand, badlands, and rocks for example. It helps to not accentuate the textures too much with sharpening. In extreme cases I will even add a very slight blur to them to soften them so that you can pay more attention to the large shapes and lines that hold up the composition.
Thanks for the feedback, Eric. Yeah, I actually took out some sharpening and then did -12 on texture and -15 on clarity in LR and it still looks crunchy. That was a good lesson learned. I’ll have to try a slight blur in the future on these type of images. Thanks again!
What a fascinating study of color, texture and details.
One of my first thoughts was kinda touched on my Cameron with regards to the positioning of the main crack in the rock. To me, the horizontal version is kind of a yin-yang, 50/50 thing where each half seems almost indpendent of the other and therefore I get the old ping-pong effect (how many different ways can I describe the same thing… sheesh.)
What is intersting and odd at the same time, the vertical presentation doesn’t give me that same reaction. In fact, there are some verticals (slight diagonal actually) that tie the top and bottom together; namely the yellow/orange lines in the LL that continue, sort of, to the figure and the angle of the shape in the upper half - tying them together. At least to me. And so I think the vertical presentation works much better.
I can understand the comments on being “crunch” - but really only looking at the full large view. Certainly this type of image with all the natural texture and very fine detail could be problematic with sharpening anyway. But not a huge deal - maybe only if you’re printing this.
The vertical is definitely better. That’s because the lines are going upwards from left to right. The dominant one in the center and the fainter vertical ones.
