Creative Direction...Part 2

Image Critiques
1

20230318-DVNP-458_Long Edge_1600x2000_H_100-2.jpg
20230318-DVNP-458_Long Edge_1600x2000_H_100-2.jpg1600×2000 575 KB

Critique Style Requested: Initial Reaction

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

This is a companion to a prior post (Creative Direction - #4). I’m tying to nail down a “direction” so to speak for some of these images on the dunes in Death Valley. The light was exceptionally flat for the majority of the time and I’m soliciting feedback on a few different approaches. Those of you who saw the first, I’m curious which resonates with you more from a processing stand point. I know compositionally there were some challenges with the first.

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

Clearly this one is a significant difference from the first and a greater departure from reality (which for these isn’t really critical to me). I go back and forth on them so much in terms of processing I need to pick a path and forge ahead. Neither is right, neither is wrong but I find the processing strikes me differently each time I look at it. Sometimes I love it…sometimes I don’t. Who the heck knows!

Technical Details

400mm ISO 100, f/16, 1/80.

Creative Direction
2

Processing-wise, this one feels more mysterious with that cooler tonality. The repeating soft light and shadow are more visually interesting than your other one. Flipping back and forth, this palette is more appealing to me because of the moodiness of it. It’s interesting because the light and textures are so soft and would not tend to conjure up melancholy, but the color does. The vertical orientation also adds to that (vs. a long landscape view a la v1).

As I said before, I love the cooler toning. Technically, I think the cooler tones are better for bringing out the fine details in the ripples. I’ve struggled with that with DV dune images - it’s easier to blow out the fine details when going with the natural warm tones (or maybe that’s just my processing).

3

My initial reaction is:" Wow, this is a winner!" Print it, hang it on your wall, exhibit it, submit to awards…!

The processing is beautifully subtle and I LOVE the cool temperature. There is plenty of beautiful texture detail to look at, whilst the luminosity “moves” in repeating, gentle waves, like a soft melody. The coolness introduces a more remote, solitary and contemplative feeling.

The warmer temperature in the other image would work, too, I imagine, but I have seen plenty of those. This is different.

The composition is perfect .

All in all, a very elegant image. LOVE!