I was attracted to this arrangement of rocks on a flat featureless plane. I guess you would call this a minimalist type of image. I purposely desaturated the colors and spent a bit of time getting the tonal values to capture the starkness of the place. I don’t know but I always get a good feeling in such settings. I guess it’s the absence of clutter. There is a balance to it somehow.
Given the description of what I’m after do you have any suggestions of changes to be made to achieve that better? Or comments if this achieves what I’m after?
Igor, works perfectly for my tastes as is and the simplicity here supplies a plenty IMO…
When we see this bit of uniqueness in nature I always give it a head scratch on how and why these rocks found this remote spot for their home…
I love the title. It’s very fitting. Definitely an absence of clutter but there is also a sense of non random placement for each of the rocks, almost like it’s a time piece from an ancient civilization where each rock has it’s perfect place. This is what gives it it’s harmonious look and feel. It’s very balanced. You don’t have any clouds in the sky which adds to the starkness/minimalist nature of this image so including just a sliver makes perfect sense. Even the hills are rather featureless and don’t draw too much attention to them. I was thinking black and white but depending on how you would process it, it would likely lose some of the soft, uniformity you have achieved with this color version. This is well thought out and processed. I wouldn’t change anything abut this.
I would have easily looked past this scene. The more textured mud further in the scene would have prevented me from pursuing in the field. But from what you have shown here, it works.
Since you are already desaturating the colors anyway, any thought of going B&W?
I had to move the white point to the right after the conversion but not much else. I think all such images that are mostly about tonal values can be converted to b&w. I often like very saturated colors in such compositions. But I think this looks good in b&w as well.
Yeah, I think viewers liked last year’s @Tony_Kuyper’s b&w conversion of the Alvord Desert picture more than the original as well. It had richer tones though.
The way I came about making this image may be interesting. This was the fourth day of shooting at this place and I had burned out, lost attention. So I just went for a walk without the camera. Everything I saw wasn’t new anymore and held little interest. And then I walked up to this collection of rocks and put a frame around it and everything just felt like it was where it should be. So I rushed to the car, set up the tripod, clicked the shutter. A couple of weeks later had me scratching my head wondering what I saw in these rocks. But a month after taking it I took a gander at it again and once again it clicked. Once again I saw what motivated me to shoot it. I kind of compare it to a pool table. It’s those simple clean lines with geometric shapes on it. Some say math is beautiful. It’s geometry that’s beautiful.
