The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
Views of Merrimac and Monitor Buttes in Utah, using the same barely alive juniper for foreground interest. The angle of Monitor got the better cloud view, so I zoomed out a little to show it better, but I prefer the Merrimac view because the butte feels closer and more intimate. For those who might not know, the two buttes are named for the first ironclads that fought each other during the US Civil War; these appear to be in an eternal standoff by their close proximity to each other. I’m always amazed at the tenacity of junipers, too. The small branches at the right were the only remaining green to be found on this one.; its thick trunk base tells me it may be well over 100 years old since they grow so slowly and have been known to live up to 650 years.
Specific Feedback
All comments are welcome, but I’d also appreciate specific thoughts about whether the colors appear to be true. I seem to be having an issue with getting images too warm in LR, and it really shows up when I import something to PS, so I end up doing a bit of color balancing in PS.
Technical Details
Canon T1 Mark II, CPL, f 13, 1/320; 40 mm on Merrimac; 24 mm on Monitor. On1 DeNoise AI, some color correction
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
Hi Denise - These are two great desert scenes. I enjoyed both images, but I think I actually prefer the second one. The sky is really nice and I like seeing more of the cloud formations. I also like the greater sense of distance in the second image. As for your question about the colors, I’m not really a great judge of that, but they seem pretty true to me. Looking at the juniper trunk in particular, it might be a touch on the warm side, but without having been there it’s hard for me to say.
Wow nice shots Denise I prefer the first image as for me it is more balanced than the second image by having the green tree in the middle of the v in the dead tree stump. Your composition helps pull the viewer’s eye through the image. It appears as if image #2 is a sharper image than #1 Overall well done as shooting scenes like this with harsh light is a challenge
@john_kilgour and @ian7 - Thank you both for your comments. The split opinions just verify my own split about the two images. Thanks for letting me know the juniper still looks a little warm - I’ll play with it a bit more, although junipers can fool a person by having a yellow-gold streak in all that silvery wood! But I agree with your assessment. I appreciate your comments!
Denise, I really like the vertical balance in version 1 between the juniper the butte. The wider view has me wanting to see what’s peeking in on the left. As John says, the colors in the Juniper look good. I do think the blue in the sky and the red in the butte are a bit strong. Both of those can happen when you darken things in LR. (Adobe adds saturation as colors get darker.) In PS processing you might try some midtone dodging of both the sky and the butte, that would give more attention to the butte and possibly reduce the saturation of the butte. I gave those ideas a quick try…
Thank you, @Mark_Seaver . Your adjustments were subtle, but I see what you mean. I’d also strongly polarized these to get the best cloud contrast, so bringing down the sky color a little does help. And regarding what’s peeking in from the left on the second image, I needed to work a bit more to remove the “prow” of Merrimac and to get a little better angle on the juniper at the edge of the frame.
Denise, in reading your post comment I was unaware of the history there. What drew me to the image was a deja vu on this scene. I had photographed this site very many years ago now and was totally unaware of anything beyond a nice scene to photograph…
For me the first image works best…thanks for sharing a personal revisit here into the past for me…
Paul - For me, half the fun of my photography is looking up the history, geology, science, background, and whatever else I can find about the subjects of my photos. Sometimes I spend far more hours on the research than on the post-processing!
