Dawn Bouquet

Image Critiques Landscape Critiques
1

The eastern Columbia River Gorge puts on some fantastic flower displays each spring, but they are unfortunately accompanied by strong winds and bland skies (both blue and gray) a lot of the time. Relatively calm conditions with sky color are “black swans” in my experience.

The dog and I hiked some good miles the day before I took this image looking for compositions. I thought this was a very nice looking balsamroot, and that the split field of flowers in the background made a nice backdrop.

I returned for dawn, and carefully composed this image, hopeful that the light would catch the thin clouds with color. With soul-crushing speed the wind blew the clouds to the right of the image, so that by the time the sky had this color most of the sky was blue, while the sky to the right of my composition looked like the sky you see here.

As my way of making an “inappropriate gesture” to the sky gods, I took the camera off of the tripod and shot the sky to the right of the composition. When I got back to the computer I moved the clouds back to the left, so unfortunately this image is a “Frankensky,” and only about 25% was part of the original image. (Something I am loathe to do in general.)

All comments and suggestions, as always, are appreciated, but your thoughts on two points would be helpful. First, does the final result look natural, and second is the image enough of a keeper to counterbalance the “shame” of a blended sky?

Nikon D7100
Nikon 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 at 12 mm (18mm equiv.)
Mix of 1/1.5, 1/4, and 1/180 at f/22 and ISOs 100 and 800
Four images for DOF, DR, and a Frankensky

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Edit:

Interesting, but saving the jpg image with a quality of 8 leads to mottling in the sky that is not present in the original. Here’s a version saved at a quality of 10, which seems to reduce it.

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You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.
2

Here’s the jpg the camera recorded of the sky shot; you can see about how much the sky overlapped with the original by how much of the flowers and ridgeline are in this image.

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3

John, This is a beautiful scene that does look natural, blended sky or not. I will not comment on blending shame or not, you appropriately disclosed it.
For me the background field of flowers ties the whole scene together, great vision on your part! The light on the Balsam root is also just right for the morning.
Two very minor nits for me. I would clone out the two yellow flowers about 2/3 up on the left edge of the frame, they keep grabbing my eye. The second is I might like just a touch more breathing room on the right side of the main Balsamroot.
Both are very minor and I really love this image!

1 Like
4

It looks perfectly natural to my eye, John. The hues are gorgeous, and the composition, with that powerful foreground of flowers set off against the distant sky, works beautifully. No nits for me !

5

John, this is one of the funniest stories about tempting the “Photo Gods” that I have ever heard, I got quite a chuckle over it. This is really nice, the color is great. I also really like the repetition of yellow flowers in the distant foreground, it nicely balances the image, and prevents the background from going totally dark.

I think it looks “natural” whatever that is. With the way the wind and light are at the Columbia Gorge, I’ll give you a pass on this Frankensky. This fits into my “it could have been there” guideline, the light on the land looks consistent with the sky (which it should give or take 30 degrees of orientation). This image is a keeper for me, my only suggestion would be to lift the shadows a bit in the mid-ground above the flowers.

6

John,

You’ve found and captured quite the beautiful specimen of the balsamroot. And yeah, the final result looks pretty darn natural to me - including the fact that the light on the balsamroot is accurate since the sun isn’t out yet. I would agree with Alan in cloning out the little flowers left edge.

While this is quite a lovely near/far composition and beautiful display and image - I have to say that this doesn’t rank up there with your strongest work; at least for me. The plant is a bit tight on the sides and the mid-ground vegetation isn’t adding much to the overall comp, other than separating the flowering balsamroot from the sky. Is it a keeper? Of course!

Lon

7

Processing looks fine to me. I like the shot, John, but IMHO it’s not portfolio material. And by that I mean “your” portfolio. I don’t think it compares with your usual top notch work. The middle ground and BG are just ok.But it would look fine in “my” portfoloio. LOL
:vulcan_salute:

8

Thanks for the comments all!

The tightness was a goof on my part. I composed the image with the camera focused close, and my camera/lens zooms as it is focused farther away. If I’m blending a really large DOF, this can be significant. I ended up having to crop to the tighter image, and lost a significant portion of the edges. Hopefully I’ll remember that better in the future.

As to the comp, sadly that was intentional :blush: . I tried lowering the camera, which did cut out the midground some, but it left me wondering what was behind the balsamroot. In retrospect, I should have lowered the camera a little more than this.

I’ll put this one in the “Also Ran” bin, and have a good excuse to go back next year!

9

I think this ranks with many of your good images John. It may not rank as high as your Lake Trillium work or Sparks Lake image but certainly is as good as many others. After all the planning, time, and energy that went into this I would be hesitant to put it into the ‘also ran’ bin. My only criticism would be that it’s just a bit tight on the sides. I would be proud to have this image.