Recall the little girl in a classroom in Annie Hall foretelling her future - “I’m into leather”. Well, I’m into mud these days. The dried mud at the bottom of a lake bed is a great source of designs and abstracts. And they change with light. They’re different in the mornings then in the evenings. They can sing on overcast days. And on glaring bright day’s they look brutal.
GFX50R, 45-100mm
There’s a mistake in this image which I have yet to clean up. Can you spot it and explain what it is?
Shots like this are just endless with possibility. Including the tip of your shoe…is that what it is? I’ve done that a bunch of times. It’s always a little funny.
Overall the lines are nicely balanced with thick cracks and thin. The tan shades range nicely, although I could see shading the darker ones darker still. Depends on how isolated you want the cracks to be. The square crop works well. It’s easy to include too much in these.
Hi Igor…what excellent depth to the textures are seen here. I am drawn to the horse head in the middle. Like @Kris_Smith said, I think “less is more” here and while I haven’t taken pictures like these before, it’s a good teaching point for me to see that a more focused scene is easier to process as a viewer.
2 of the 4 corners have tiny little bits to them that serve as a little distraction to my eye. I supposed they could be cloned out or managed with some modest warping/pulling those corners if you felt they were significant. And I thought the structure on the right border could have been a hat or a piece of rope or something, but I like the shoe theory.
Finally, I’m curious about your post-processing here. Did you happen to apply any Topaz Simplify and blend this in? It looks ever so slightly to have an illustrated feel to the image. This is not a criticism, but observation…a technique I’ve enjoyed and applied in the past.
No filters were applied to this image. This is virtually the raw file as there was hardly any processing done as well. I think I raised the white point slightly because this was shot without any direct light. I also did use a Fujifilm profile on the RAW file but it was a mild one (not Velvia).
The colors and tones that you see in the image are pretty much what you see in the field. I had visited this place several times with unsatisfactory results. The key seemed to be to show up in the Spring after the rains. Another key was to drive to the north end of the lake bed where part of the dry lake still had water. There is a transition between dry and wet which has the best, the most diverse, subject matter for these type of images. And, of course, you need huge lake beds to search. Mud dries in a variety of ways, leaving a variety of different cracks and fissures. And then the wetness varies, leaving different patterns of color. It’s a transitional thing because these places change weekly, even daily.
Each type of design has it’s own emotional energy. This one, I feel, is pretty intense. You may feel otherwise.
The fact that this has so little manipulation to the image makes it even more impressive and intriguing in appearance. It’s interesting to hear about the difficult in finding the right conditions and depth of mud. The color and luminance variety here are rich. I like the square format for this.
This is spectacular Igor, it really grabs my attention and encourages my eye to explore the details. The processing is excellent, with great colors. And the texture and clarity make it seem like I can reach out and feel the roughness of the mud. With subjects like this, it’s easy to get lines that lead the viewer out of the frame. You have almost none of that here, instead you chose a section that has a strong circular pattern that corrals the viewers eye in the center. It’s very clear that you knew what you were doing. I agree with @Kris_Smith , looks like the toe of your boot in the LRC. I’ll admit that my tripod leg has made a few unwanted guest appearances in shots like this.
I think this image works great as presented. But as is often the case with strong abstract images, a spin of the wheel can produce some interesting results as well. Not better, but also worthwhile. I like the left to right flow of this rework.
I love this image @Igor_Doncov . Very nice framing (although I might try to “clean” the URC).
Very smooth feeling, very smooth colors.
Very nice.
Another vote for the “toe on frame”
I love these types of mud abstracts Igor. I immediately see the horse head in the center portion of the frame although I see more of a sea horse with it’s tail wrapping around it’s body. As you’ve said, these are VERY tough to compose so that they are not too busy, and where the tones are soft and muted and the lines don’t draw you out of the scene. You’ve accomplished all of that with this image. You had really good light for this and the patterns are pleasing to the eye. The detail is incredible. I vote for the shoe or some sort of bag peeking in from the lower right side of the frame.
I quite like this abstract. Excellent patterns, textures and color. My first thought was to clone out the dark spot in the URC, then saw @joaoquintela already suggested it.
So nicely done, Igor. As others have said, composing these is very difficult for me as well. Especially keeping the lines such that the viewer’s eye stays in the frame as much as possible. My only comment was the same as @Jim_McGovern’s,to consider removing the little bulky shapes in the upper and lower left corners. But this is minor.
So we’ll composed! I wonder how long you wandered around to get this one!
It didn’t take that long actually. The good light is there briefly so you don’t have a lot of time. I didn’t look for it but rather let it appear to me. Another words, the less visual strain to find it the quicker it becomes apparent. I actually came to this area to do scenics and I think I got some nice ones. It’s only when I ran out of ideas with them that I turned my eyes downward and started to explore. I suspect that happens to many of us.
There is also an interesting human story associated with this. This is a $350 image. Yes, that’s what it cost me to get towed out of the mud that day. You could say I got close and personal with my subject matter.
Thank you all for your input. The intrusion on the right was indeed my sandal. I was pleasantly surprised how well the Edit/Fill/ContentAware cleaned up the image. A crop was out of the question as they would have brought the cracks too close to the frame.
Joao, I did remove the crack in the URC which bothered you. Below is the revised version, The revision looks remarkably similar to the original.
Some more interesting mud, Igor. The texture and depth of the pattern is super. I’m not sure what you were thinking as far as interpretation of this one, but you do say that you think it has some intense emotional energy. With that in mind, I can see fiddling with this one a bit to bring out more energy. My thinking is that you could do it with color, making the lighter bits on the tops of the “hills” more blue and increasing the contrast overall. Here’s my idea. I may have gone too far, but you get the idea. (I left your shoe in, though.)
Thank you, Bonnie. I put it up top for a comparison. Yes, I think it’s a bit too contrasty now but the blue suggestion may be worth playing with. Don’t know what others think.
Igor, I didn’t comment on the OP, but I am now offering my two cents on the original vs. @Bonnie_Lampley rework. I like Bonnie’s version, but for me it changes the image to be more about the texture than the cracks, if that makes sense. I find the cracks are deemphasized and the texture becomes most prominent. Neither is better in my view, apple and orange.
Regardless, I think this is a fine abstract and the boot tip is ALMOST interesting enough to leave in!
