The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
I was looking for a specific location along the rim of the Gooseberry Mesa, south of the Zion Wilderness region. As it turns out, I was in the wrong place, but as the daylight faded and my time for exploring ran out, the sun broke free from low clouds on the horizon and lit up the edges of these lower canyon and the taller cliffs beyond. This is a lower key edit I made specifically for this challenge, pushing the boundaries of the shadow areas in the foreground mesa.
(Incidentally, I did figure out the original location I was hunting by using Google Earth, but haven’t been there yet.)
Specific Feedback
I have also been experimenting with the saturation. These sandstone cliff walls really do glow an intense red, but I think in pushing the shadows and dehaze as far as I did, the saturation/vibrance has also gone too high. However, I’m getting inconsistent results. It looks OK in Lightroom, but when I export to JPG I’m getting more saturation than I expect or want.
Technical Details
Nikon D850 w/ 80-400 zoom at 86mm
1/60 sec at f/11, ISO 400
Cropped from a wider angle composition… maybe 150-200mm equivalent?
Quite a bit of atmospheric haze to overcome.
Kevin this photo is wonderful. Overall I love your composition. The depth, colors, and layers are just great.
I bet this is a challenging photo to edit even without the weirdness you’re getting from LR. I do find my attention tugged to the bottom left of the image as the deep shadow grabs my eye, but I love following the light on the ridge to the beautiful sandstone cliffs in the background. I know the theme of the challenge this week is “dark” but maybe lifting the shadows slightly would add some additional balance.
Personally I don’t think the saturation looks unnatural, maybe slightly intense but sunsets in Zion are fiery.
You certainly got good light, and I think that is important in simplifying a complex image. It also adds depth. As to color saturation, I wasn’t there so I don’t know what it really looked like, but it does not look too unnatural here. Dehaze can definitely cause some odd color shifts when pushed to far, so you could try backing off on that
I love the deep textures and depths you capture. I wonder if some of that haze might be a good thing?
The near hillside on the left might be somewhat lighter so as not to pull the eye down/left
Next trip to Zion, I’ll try to find that Gooseberry Mesa!
Thanks, Heath! The more I look at this edit I did for the “Dark” theme and the one I originally did, I think it wants to be somewhere in the middle. I agree the dark areas are too dark. There’s not a lot of detail to be found in some of those shadows, but there’s not “none”. I’ll give it another go this weekend…
Agreed about the dehaze. My original edit has more haze in the background and the colors look better overall. I’ll go for something in between the two.
I’ll give it another go this weekend…