Milford Sound, late afternoon after tourists left. Fortunately we stayed in the small lodge 2 nights. One has the place to themselves before 9 and after 4. The weather changes by the hour. I was virtually the only one on the shoreline with just the light intermittent rain and the ever present sand flies for company. It truly is an awe inspiring sight. The waterfall in the distance must be over 1000 feet high.
Fuji X-T1, 18-135 lens @ 34ffe; 1/30, f14, iso 200
PS for minor clean up of twigs, NIK silver efex, LR for burning and dodging.
Any comments and suggestions are appreciated. There really was no color and I was thinking B&W the whole time. However, I’ve processed this many times over the last two years without being totally satisfied. This is my current “place keeper”.
An awfully nice “place keeper”, Craig. I love all the layering in this image. I love the foreground branch, but its density kind of holds my eye and I find it a bit difficult to move into the image. I’m wondering if brightening that area above the right notch a bit more would help pull the eye in. Just a wild idea from someone who’s done almost no B&W.
I’ll play with that. I took images that included the tree which I thought had a neat shape, and some without it. The light down the sound kept fluctuating. My eyes were drawn to it because I wanted it to intensify but it just kept teasing… this image had probably the biggest glow. When I become more skilled with luminosity masks, they may help me draw the eye down the sound better.
Craig, this is a neat view. The shape of the overhead limbs is very nice, reminiscent of the oriental print style. The lighting and clouds over the mountains are very nicely stormy. There’s an overall, stormy, darkness and that may be deliberate on your part. I’m thinking that some brightening of the foreground would make this more inviting while preserving the storminess. Midtone luminosity masks would be one way to try that brightening.
Thanks Mark, I’ll see how that looks. I may have been a little overzealous with my GND filter. I will evaluate some luminosity mask variations after your and Dennis’s comments
I love this photo, it’s a fabulous composition with beautifully layered light. IMO, the foreground brightness is perfect. I agree with Dennis, the foreground branch is distracting.
Thank you for the help. Dennis and Tony- I increased the luminosity down the sound to try to pull the eye away from the tree. I also brightened the foreground slightly. So I now have a better place-keeper for the tree image.
I also went back and looked at an image from a few feet away that did not have the tree but the foreground was a little cluttered. Now I have two place-keepers.
I find this to be a fascinating image. It has the feel of a fairy tale setting.
I love how you have incorporated the tree into composition. A bold and daring move but one that adds so much to the scene. Just a part of the tree tells me about the surroundings. Very, very nice!
Thank you. Thanks to everyones comments, I made some additional changes and came up with an image I am pleased with on screen. Next step is printing it.
I like this a lot now, Craig. My eye is now drawn to the back but I still get to view that lovely tree if I choose.
The second image is also nice, but I think it needs some work on the lighting as my eye seems to stall in the middle and doesn’t have a strong urge to roam anywhere from there.
Dennis- you spotted the issue right away. I did evaluate brightening the clouds in the notch, but it still didn’t work. Brightening the sun rays coming through the light rain down the sound did pull my eye and create some depth and more closely reflected my feeling when I was taking the image but I was a biased observer. I’m glad you saw what I saw in the revision. Thanks for the help.
