Fred Before Java, Joshua Tree NP

Image Critiques Weekly Challenge
1

Fred before Java.jpg
Fred before Java.jpg2831×2831 2.19 MB

Critique Style Requested: Standard

The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.

Description

Thank you NPN for this weekly challenge, for I am afflicted with Chronic Rock Photography Syndrome. Friends laugh at me for photographing crystal structures in granite. Joshua Tree National Park is a rock wonderland, offering everything from colorful lichen closeups and balanced boulders to dramatic landscapes. If you go out there enough, you will accumulate several images of rocks resembling animals, humans, Greek temples, etc. I found this beauty – about 12 feet tall – and named it for a camping buddy, who is not pleasant until he has his morning coffee.

Specific Feedback

Only question is whether the shot is cropped too tight – I have many others with the formation in context to the wider desert, but they don’t deliver this imposing tone!
Of course, I stand accused of shooting this because it looks like the head of a desert guardian god. I can’t go out there without looking for such formations. I have another that is a perfect Sea Lion, 15 feet tall.
Comments on edit are appreciated as well.

Technical Details

Olympus EM1 Mark II, 14MM, ISO 250, F8 @ 1/1000th, handheld.

2

James, your tight framing does a fine job of making this a portrait of a grumpy humanoid. :grin: Not sure I’d want to camp nearby… There’s a dark rim along the clouds (especially at the top) and a bright rim along the lower left face, those have me thinking that you’ve pushed the clarity (also known as microcontrast) too far. If you look at your raw file, I expect that you won’t find those rims.

3

Love that your pareidolia is working fine! I really like this tight crop and the angle of view. My only quibble is that the sky looks a little too contrasty - like you ‘polarized the bejeebers out of it,’ as a workshop instructor once said. Any way to tone down the darkest blues just a tad? Or was that the nature of the sky that day?

4

Thanks for the review and the tough love on the sky. Will review and reconsider it !

1 Like
5

I like it. He looks like a curmudgeon. I agree about the contrast in the sky. Some of the blues look excessively dark. I do like the presence of clouds though.

PS, now it looks like an iguana.

6

Thanks Igor – will work with the sky.