This is an image from a couple of years ago. We had had a day of thunderstorms from sunrise until mid afternoon. As the storm broke and the sun started to peak through lazy flooded river seemed to shine.
General feedback
Canon 5DM3
ISO 100 24 mm f/20 1/50 sec
John,
This is kinda unique; hopefully I can explain. I’m thinking the lush spring/summer greens are so calming, peaceful and just beautiful; add in the gentle flowing river and you have just a lovely, peaceful scene.
Oh wait, what’s that drama in the sky? The almost contrary elements here are what’s making me think it’s unique. I react with calm and gentle beauty - but then I want to convert that sky to some overly dramatic B&W… and how can the two resolve?
Maybe I’m the one being overly dramatic. That is one gorgeous set of clouds and the whole image sets up for a great nature story. The pending or passing storm having just given the lush vegetation a nice, cleansing shower.
No nits or suggestions. this is quite a wonderful image. Maybe, you might consider slicing some off the bottom. And to take even further I think this has some pano potential given the broad sky and edge to edge water at the bottom. A little off top and bottom to increase the pano format - I think that works nicely as an alternate. but that may not be your vision. Just a thought.
BTW, the colors/sat and processing look spot on to me.
Lon
That sky is surreal, John. I love the monochromatic sky contrasted with the wonderful colors below. Excellent.
I almost see a couple of stripes on the American Flag in the clouds. Terrific swirling, and rippling cloud formation, John. Some of the best clouds I’ve seen in a long time. The colors in the vegetation look real to me and when I zoom in I want to explore what’s around the rivers bend. I find the rivers dirty water a juxtaposition with everything else that’s so clean and crisp, particularly the white/blue clouds but in a very realistic way. Storm comes through, everything is bright and shiny and clean and crisp after the rain and you obviously get storm run off with some dirty water. Makes perfect sense. By the way, that is not a nit at all. I think it works perfectly.
I think this could be rotated clockwise just a smidge. When zoomed in and looking at the rivers bend where the grass and flowers meet the water it looks a little bit off. Other than that, I love everything about this one, particularly the clouds.
Thanks Lon, David, David for the comments. For all the reasons you have mentioned I have really liked this image. Like all of my shots as I look at it critically I find thing I would have liked to do differently. For this shot I wish I was taking the picture from a position a little to my right so that I would have included the right bank in the shot to give it a more balanced feel.
