Critique Style: Standard
The photographer is looking for thoughtful feedback on the image as a whole, especially around the areas noted below.
Feedback Focus: Artistic / Expressive
About This Image
Massive forest fires are burning in Northern Canada and prevailing winds have shrouded the upper Midwest in brown, hazy smoke. Yesterday, the Mackinac Bridge was nearly closed due to limited visibility. When I woke this morning, Jenny said to me to look outside, and I was shocked at what I saw. I could see the orange globe of sun trying to burn through the smoke so I set up the 600mm and started shooting. A diagonal cloud was intersected by the sun and created an interesting back scatter of light which was a vivid red orange. Sad, but beautiful at the same time and I hope that’s what this image has captured.
Feedback Requested
How do you feel about this? I cringe when I think about the destruction of the Northern boreal forest and wish that I could put these fires out.
Technical Details
Camera: Z9
Lens: 600mm f4
Focal length: 600mm
Shutter speed:1/500
Aperture: f7.1
ISO: 250
Flash:
DeNoise, Levels, and reduction of blue saturation in the sky. I cropped this to position the sun with the intended movement due to the Earth’s rotation.
Holy smoke! Bad pun I know, but this is quite unreal!
Very sad of course what this represents, but also so very unique! This is something I don’t even think I’ve seen captured during eclipses. Simply amazing. Great job with the colors and processing.
One small nit - and that would be the small spec below the cloud. Could that actually be like a sun spot? flare? Or is it simply a spec of dust, a bird or something? If not naturally occurring you might consider cloning it out. But then again, it does raise interest as to what it could be…
Unbelieveable image Jim. Sad for what it means, but certainly a once in a lifetime experience
WOW! I love this for being so unusual! And that is almost surely a sunspot. There is only one today and it’s about there. (Google “today’s sunspots”.) As you say, images like this bring up so many emotions and I find it very difficult to imagine fires in the east, which feels like it should be an area of plentiful moisture. I guess it was, when all those gorgeous trees grew… Yes, indeed – sad but beautiful. I love the blush of smoke (I started to say cloud!) in the upper right.
Oddly it has been a quiet couple of years for fires in northern CA. There was one just a couple of days ago that was held to something like 15 acres. Ironically it was an area that had been badly burned by TWO recent very large and destructive fires, in 2017 and 2020.
Thank you @Lon_Overacker and @Diane_Miller for the critiques and to Diane for validation of the sunspot. I might reduce the brightness of the sun to bring out more of the orange that was observed at the time the photo was taken. Apparently, there are close to 900 fires that are hitting the boreal forest where access to the fires is quite limited…Jim
