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
A popular formation in Arches NP… I was only there for the afternoon so given the conditions, I am curious what others think of the final image.
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.
Technical Details
Shot on my Canon 6D at 17mm, I had to cleanup some tourists from the image, but other than that it was minor editing to bring the highlights back from being blown out.
Specific Feedback
Not looking for advice on the composition or editing, since I’m happy with the result. Just curious how others feel about this image.
1 Like
It’s a very compelling view but, honestly, I feel the editing could benefit from reducing the highlights a lot, perhaps at the sacrifice of some shadows. The highlights on the rock face on the right and at the bottom are also blown out. The 6D should have a good-enough dynamic range to recover those tonalities, given the right exposure. That’s not what you said you wanted to hear, but that’s how I feel.
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Hi Diane, I’m open to all feedback when posting to here anyways. Thanks for your take on the image. I feel like the balance of highlights and shadows comes down to personal preference, and I intentionally exposed this to the right as far as I could without blowing the details. I disagree that the highlights in the rocks are blown out, as I define blown out as being a non-recoverable amount of exposure in a pixel to the point where detail is lost. Although maybe it appears that way on your monitor, I don’t know. Anyway, I could lower the brightness, but in my experience here it was definitely really bright… and very warm, so I’ve tried to capture it that way.
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Apologies, Aaron, I certainly misspoke, in a rush. I meant the brighter areas in the rocks felt as they had too little detail. But that was obviously your intentional choice and I didn’t mean to be negative about it — just trying to give my honest initial reaction. I think I have a more positive tolerance for under exposure than overexposure.
1 Like
No need for apologies at all! I appreciate you even taking the time to look and review. I definitely understand the preference for lower exposures as I do appreciate a dark composition, I guess this one just wasn’t striking me that way. I hope I didn’t come across as combative in my response. 
