I was up for sunrise on the north shore of Lake Erie. Hoping for some interesting light at sunrise. I found these interesting ice formation but the clouds were very thick at sunrise. I took the risk as I knew some weather was moving in and was hoping to catch the edge of the weather and the light. It was very peaceful and quite with no one around. You do hope for some things with landscape photography but I try to not let my preconceptions get in the way. So I started to explore different composition of the ice patterns. It was a bit of a struggle. I have some ok frames but nothing that really stands out to me. Hoping to get some feed back on a series of images. I converted to black and white to focus on the ice patterns and clouds as there was almost no color in the scene.
Specific Feedback Requested
Any preference in the three images? Any suggestion for processing.
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
16mm on full frame. horizontal (landscape) image is a single frame. the two vertical (portrait) images were focused stacked.
I’d say you did very well. The horizontal one would be my choice. It’s an amazing image. I have a thing against strong horizon lines on narrow vertical images so that’s one of the reasons. The third image doesn’t have the sky of the other two and that sky is at least as important as the ice. But that first image is amazing. The bright arc of light that’s centered in the sky is really great. This is one of those images where the contrast between a cloudy sky and a bright, almost sunny landscape work. Perhaps because it’s in b&w. I sort of like that white ice entering from the lower left. All the ice is a repeating pattern but this breaks it.
My preference is for the first image. To me the graphic shapes of the ice are more impressive the more they are repeated, and the horizontal takes the most advantage of that over the 2 verticals. The horizontal also has stronger diagonal lines for more impact too. I also think the horizontal has the most dramatic sky, another plus.
In terms of processing, I think it’s better to have darker tones in the spaces between the ice ridges, it helps to better define the shapes of the ice. The first image has the darkest “space” tones, and also works best for me in that regard (though the second image comes fairly close). The third image has brighter space tones, and to me that makes the shapes of the ice less distinctive looking.
I hope you don’t mind, but just for the heck of it I wanted to see how image #1 would look with even darker space tones. I think that direction-ally this may work too. It’s more contrasty, which may be not what you were looking to do, but I like how it defines the shapes of the ice more strongly.
First one all the way for me, Bryan. Everything is laid out so nicely in that one and the ice patterns do a fantastic job of drawing me into the image. I was going to suggest a little more contrast for the same reasons @Ed_McGuirk already mentioned and I do like his little tweaks with this lovely winter scene. Wonderful drama in the sky, BTW.
Bryan, You did well getting up for sunrise and capturing these ice formations. I think my favorite is the Landscape version, #1 but I also like the second version as well. The landscape version has all the elements that make an image good. Great light, an interesting foreground leading the eye through the scene, and drama/emotion. I hope you don’t mind but I made a couple of adjustments but I don’t know if this actually improves the image or not. I burned quite a bit of the foreground, dodged the ice formations through the middle of the scene to lead the eye and slightly burned the edges of both the right and left side of the frame, cropped from the bottom and the left side and straightened the horizon (slight CW rotation).
Thanks for the comments and suggestions. I’ve started re-working on the image. Here is my second pass using luminosity masks to add contrast in the darker tones in the foreground. I may do some selective burn/doge but still trying some different things. I may look at darkening some of the ice in the foreground similar to @David_Haynes . Thanks to @Ed_McGuirk for his example as well.
When @David_Kingham did his webinar on B&W processing, he used an example of some salt polygons from Death Valley that looked somewhat similar to these ice formations. He darkened the centers of the polygons and dodged the white rims to draw out more contrast. Your image here sort of reminded me of the example in Davids webinar,
An interesting image - I wished that the clouds had co-operated for you but you still made a great shot . landscape mode for me too
I too played around a bit. Just a different take - trying to accentuate the ice. And btw, any chance that you took multiple focussed images ?
I think these are excellent. I love the first one but I find the second one has a sense of depth that is also outstanding. Post processing images like this is hard to do, especially, in my experience, with knowing when to stop. It’s a matter of personal taste, naturally, but I find yours and @Karl_Zuzarte 's reworks to have pushed it too far whereas I find @David_Haynes 's just about right. What I’d be aiming to do would be to bring up the contrast in the foreground but not so much that it stops in my tracks . That all being said, I salute you for your commitment, you’ve come away with a wonderful image that balances the natural world with pure abstract.
Thanks for the feedback. I returned to the location today but the patterns were covered by fresh snow. The first image is very close to the original B&W image during blue hour. I did get some light at sunrise. I started in the same area and then explored a little more and found some wonderful new ice. I’m fortunate that this location is only 45 min from my house. I still dream of far flung locations but in the last 3-4 years I’ve done a few trips but try to photograph close to home.
