This was taken a couple weeks ago at Mono Lake, California. My trip to the Eastern Sierras was greatly hampered by snow storms. I was at Mono Lake for sunrise, but there wasn’t one. I did manage to catch this wonderful golden light that came through a break in the clouds during golden hour.
Any feedback is welcome. Thank you.
Is this a composite: No
I like the composition here… overall the white balance feels a bit too warm to me, but maybe you could fix that by selectively de-saturating the snow by using a luminosity mask and a saturation layer. You caught some interesting light!
Wonderful light!
The foreground lakeshore doesn’t do much for me. How about cropping to pano format?
Beautiful light on the tufas. I was thinking along the same lines as Greg with regard to the shore, but I would be inclined to heavily burn it rather than crop it. It would nicely balance the dark background and showcase the tufa formations even more?
Such gorgeous light, i do like Greg crop, it creates more emphasis on the mountains on the back which are beautiful.
I never saw nothing like this, ate these tufas salt formations?
I prefer the original composition, I think it creates a better sense of depth than the pano crop. I like the multiple layers in your original composition. The light is very nice, but I agree with @Matt_Payne that it feels a bit too warm overall. I think you could create some stronger contrast by having the shadows a bit cooler, while keeping the high lights warm. I think this makes the image a bit crisper looking.
I used a TK Action darks mask to apply a cooling effect, while leaving the highlights untouched.
Beautiful light Chris. This is almost better than a sunset shot you were hoping for. I agree with @Matt_Payne about this being too warm, particularly in the snow and I prefer the original composition to the cropped version. I think @Ed_McGuirk nailed the warm highlights. Lucky you that the lake wasn’t blowing with white caps. So often with storms at Mono Lake the lake turns windy and full of white caps.
Thank you all for your wonderful feedback.
