I took this image early the other day from high atop the Big Sur coast. There was a blanket of fog on the Pacific below me, and the lupine made a nice foreground—or the fog made a nice background. I have a question about whether I should make one or the other more prominent, and I do have lots of other takes on the scene.
What technical feedback would you like if any?
Any
What artistic feedback would you like if any?
I am unsure about all the white at the top of the photo and wonder if I should crop it, but I like the fog. Is that confusing the main subject, which is the glorious lupine flowers?
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
I combined 2 shots for depth of field. Processed in LR and PS. ISO 125, 70mm, f/16, 1/25. I used TK for luminosity and sharpening.
You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.
Life is hard when you simply have too many great subjects to work with in a scene 
You are essentially asking if you have two main subjects competing with each other, and if you do, what is the best way to make one dominant, and the other complementary. I normally start by asking myself where are the brightest areas of the image where our eyes will be drawn first, and is being drawn there really where I want the viewer to go?
You have two bright areas, the fog and the strip of light on the grass. some would argue you may have two main subjects competing. Otherwise you have a classic foreground/mid-ground/background composition. This is subjective, but I think the fog threading through the ridges is the more interesting and the stronger “subject”. I would not crop any of that away.
To me the bright area in the lupines is not as dominant because it is broken up by stripes of shadows, especially the large darkest one at the bottom of the image. And the rock is also not large or interesting enough to be more dominant than the fog. In my interpretation of this image that creates an issue because the dominant subject, fog, is much smaller and further away than the foreground subjects. If the lupines had been fully sunlit, they probably would have been strong enough to be dominant. The best idea I have is to crop the bottom, minimizing the shadowed area, like this
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@Kathy_Barnhart - This must have been just a lovely scene to experience! Wish I was there! It is well exposed and has good sharpness to my view. The color pallete seems pleasant/harmonious. I think Ed does a great job describing the challenges with this image. I have to say that the brightness of the distant fog does compete strongly to my eye with the foreground components, to the point that as he suggests, I find myself struggling to discern which is primary and which is secondary subject matter/elements. Perhaps more importantly, I am struggling to relate the two components. How do the foreground flowers help reveal something about the distant scene (or vice versa)? The third “element” - the dark band of trees separating the two otherwise brighter components of the image also attract attention due to the lower luminance compared to an otherwise higher key/somewhat lower contrast scene. It is perhaps the biggest challenge to drawing the two components together serving as a strong separator. Now, all of this must be taken with a grain of salt. I’ve been studying composition for years now, and feel I’ve struggled in doing so. I believe I’m personally drawn to greater simplicity, so that will introduce a bias. Anyway, thanks for sharing and let me know your thoughts on the above.
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@Kathy_Barnhart. It’s pretty clear to me that you intended the flowered slope to be the main subject and then we were supposed to wistfully look into the distance. The problem in my view was that the fg light is harsh with contrasty results. So the flowers lack their impact while the distant view looks really good and starts to dominate. I tried to bring back interest to the fg by raising the shadows, slightly lowering the highlights, increasing color in LAB mode, and finally dropping the clarity a tad. It gives it a bit more of a late afternoon look instead of a midday look but I’m ok with that. I’m not sure how this experiment works for you but that’s the direction I would work this image.
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Kathy, this is quite wonderful. Other than thinking about the composition for the moment, I think this works beautifully as presented, if for no other reason than bring the viewer there. I think one might need to be vaguely familiar with the CA coast - or really any coastal mountain scene, but having both the field of lovely greens and lupine with the foggy marine layer beyond just simply captures what this coastal scenery and experience is like.
As far as the composition goes, I can see why you might be conflicted. And btw, it’s a good conflict in the sense that there’s nothing really wrong or out of balance here - I think it’s simply about making the comp stronger and emphasizing what’s important to you. For me, I start out biased against such a tall format (the old 4:5 preference for verticals.) and by default I think this leads to 50/50 set ups where you have the potential of 2 main elements; here, the hillside of flowers, an then the marine layer encroaching on the coastal range.
IMHO, the fog is the supporting element. It’s important to the story, but not the main subject. And if it was an important element, you may have zoomed in to show is the fog. It’s also not so much about the brightness to me - both the fog and the beautifully lit field of grass and flowers - are nicely exposed and not “bright” as in eye magnet bright. I think there’s a nice balance in light.
I do like cropping a little off the bottom, but that must be paired with a more significant crop off the top to avoid the even more 50/50 comp. I attempted to go for a more 1/3-2/3 comp giving prominence the field of flowers, yet keeping some of the fog for context and location experience.
Not sure if any of that makes sense. A wonderful coastal landscape no matter what.
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Kathy, I have always been wanting to experience a lupine meadow in person but due to my day job, I have not been able to get there when they are blooming. As presented, I agree with @Jim_McGovern but @Lon_Overacker’s edit seems to tie the BG and FG very well.
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Kathy, I do not want to be too redundant here but I do agree with much of what @Jim_McGovern and @Ed_McGuirk have already stated. Having said that I also agree with @Lon_Overacker and feel that this is such a unique phenomenon to a coastal area, that as a midwesterner I am instantly drawn to the fog layer below the lupine meadow. I know these things inversions occur, but as a viewer the fog is just more captivating than the flowers and they get passed by visually.
Thank you for presenting such a beautiful scene even if the comp has not come across as you may have intended.
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Thanks for your feedback, Lon. I like the crop and think it does help my dilemma. The whole lupine field looks a lot brighter on the NPN site than on my computer. I may need to adjust the brightness on my screen.
Thanks, Adhika. I hope you get to experience a lupine meadow some spring soon!
