I’ve just come back from a week in the Dolomites, the autumnal colour were amazing, but nevertheless I found myself drawn to the raw rock formations. This shot was taking about 20min after a rather boring sunset, but blue hour was amazing. I used my 70-200 lens zoomed in all the way to 200mm to capture these mountains.
I’m actually quite stoked with how it came out, but I can’t make my mind up about the blue and composition. Is it too blue? I haven’t really added any and toning it down makes the image less powerfull in my opinion but I would really love what you think of it.
Same goes for composition/crop, I originally shot this as 1:1 ratio, but now I think this ratio looks better. What would you say?
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
Fairly basic edits in LR, then some dodging and burning in photoshop using luminosity masks.
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@dewit_photo
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This is certainly a beautiful scene with majestic formations that hold a viewers attention. The choice of a longer lens was nice to simplify the scene.
I think the blue is a bit overwhelming in the image. I understand the time of day and why you would want to keep some of the blue. I played with the image a bit to reduce the effect overall. I ended up selectively leaving a bit more blue in the distant mountains, and a bit less in the closer mountains. A tiny contrast adjustment was added as well. See if you like this option. Clearly, many right answers for this image.
What a scene! This is lovely, and I’ll be the contrarian here: I love the colors in your original post. It conveys the feeling of blue hour better to me. Also, if you have a little more up top in your original frame, I think that might balance the image a little better. It feels just a little too cramped up there to me.
@Keith_Bauer
First of all, thanks for the kind words, especially like that you think it’s an image that holds the viewers attention!
I really like your thoughts on playing with the blues and removing them from certain locations in the photo. I have been thinking about it a lot and just re-edited the image.
It’s not as clear to see as your edit, but I did remove some of the blues from the very dark areas and maintained them in the lighters ones, they reflect the blue colour in the end.
@Tom_Nevesely
Thank you, good to hear that I am heading into the right direction!
@Eva_McDermott
I’ve reduced some of the blue tones in some areas of the photo now, see re-edit above. It is subtle, but I think noticeable.
Thanks for the comment and compliment as well!
@Craig_Moreau
Hi Craig, thanks a lot for the comment. By now, a lot of hours later after posting the initial post I kind of like the blues as well. But as I’ve explained before I kind of reduced them a bit in the darker areas.
I’ve also added a bit of sky, you were right I think about how tight it was on top.
