Hi all, this image was taken at Castlerigg stone circle in the Lake District, UK.
It is a very popular spot for photographers but you tend to see panoramic images of the entire circle.
I’ve shot this composition before at sunrise and I love the way that the strong foreground rock starts us off through the frame as it eventually sweeps round leading the eye to the lighter part of the sky.
In the interest of full disclosure, the light source in the sky has been added as I had hoped for the moon to be visible but heavy cloud cover put an end to that plan - is it too bright? Is the brightness of the overall image enough that you can view detail while still retaining a dark feel?
I like the dark and moody edit of this image, I think it reflects to spooky feel of the place that you get when visiting in darkness.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on how it can be improved upon (in post and composition)
This is excellent in my opinion. The composition is really good. The atmosphere is great. I really like the restraint in color as well. Many of the British photographers I admire use restrained color patterns such as this. On my laptop this has the right amount of light. It’s a somber mood. There’s a sort of dark vagueness about it all. Things are there and not there. This image is better than most fog images which try to accomplish a similar feeling.
Wow thanks Igor, that’s really encouraging thank you very much indeed. I come here to have my images ‘torn apart’ in the interest of learning but it’s great to receive compliments.
I’m not sure how you would tear this apart. You could change it’s mood by adding color or changing the exposure. I suppose if you had space to the left in the original you could include that and crop some off the right but it would be a minor change and I’m not sure it would make things much better. You could add texture so that the grass and the rock surface have more definition.
Chris, the composition and tonality are spot on. I don’t mind the additional light to substitute for the moon at all. I think it’s been done with great taste. I am not particularly crazy with the color but that is personal taste. But apart from that, this is a winner, Chris!
Great mood going on here, and a nice composition too! It’s not easy to process things dark and moody, small tweaks can make or kill the mood. This looks nice with the subtle light. Zooming in on the image, the fg grass is a bit softer, which maybe is intended. But since the rest is sharp I would’ve used another focus point for this one.
Thanks Ron. I played with the idea of focus stacking it but opted for focusing about a third into the frame which looked sharp when I zoomed in on the fg rock. I hadn’t noticed (until you mentioned it) that the grass is soft so lessons learned. Not the end of the world, I think it gets lost in the dark tones
I think you have done an amazing job at both composition and post processing, very well balanced and the added lightsource is very good.
I don’t think I would change anything about it, but if I have to mention something it might be a bit more ‘‘breathing’’ room around the first rock.
