What technical feedback would you like if any? Any
What artistic feedback would you like if any? Any
Any pertinent technical details: Canon 5DSR 24-105@50 1/320 f11
Driving along this road through the Mojave, I pulled over, drawn by the very dark clouds over the mountains, the flatness of the desert, the contrast in light between foreground and background, and the few scattered bushes. A fairly sparse scene, but something about it spoke to me. The overall light in the initial image captured was very flat and cool. And I may be visualizing something that isn’t there. But periodically I work on this and am open to input.
Rick, a fine looking open desert scene under the blanket of approaching storm clouds. I do really like and prefer your reworked warmer version. Nice work there…
Only thought for change might be to clone out or content aware the removal of the distant plants? Might be a positive change, maybe not, but worth a try…
Rick, I like this a lot. Great sense of open space, vast and seemingly empty, with a great dramatic sky. Your processing works really well, with the warm and cool tones contrasting. Very fine image. It would be interesting to try cloning the distant trees, but I like them there. They work for me.
Nicely done, Rick. The bg trees, yes or no on removal…my eye wanders from fg vegetation to “trees” then to mountains and sky…removing the trees would be a cleaner flow from front to back for me; trying to figure out if those are trees or hay bales or whatever stops my view to the bg. And, yes, I do like this.
At a small scale, the distant trees don’t add much or perhaps are a distraction. Enlarged to a larger scale I thought I saw an interesting diagonal from the near plants to the far trees and then onto the alluvial fan and canyon in the distant mountains. The repetition of 2 pairs of plants was interesting given that there is no other vegetation on that flat desert.
Another possibility is to clean up the foreground around the 2 plants with a little content aware fill (done this time without much finesse):
Rick, the cleanup of the FG area works nicely. Not finding anything wrong with the BG trees at all, it was just at this size it almost looked like small cars out there. Being all natural and I’m sure can be seen better in a larger print I’d leave the trees there then…
Your last repost is the winner for me, Rick. The drama laden clouds are the star of the show and the color palette works very nicely as does that little cleanup in the FG. Wonderful image.
Rick, I’m late coming in on this one, but I like the repost a lot. In looking at the smaller size version of the repost, my two thoughts were to remove the 2 small mid-ground trees, and that the luminosity of the mountains and sky was a bit too dark. But, when I opened the full size image, the 2 small trees looked better, and I did not feel that the mountains/sky were as dark as they appeared in the smaller image. It’s amazing how much difference there was in the small vs. large image. But in the end, I like the repost as presented.
Paul, Ed L., Alan, Harley, and Ed M., thanks to all for the comments. I’m really enjoying this forum as a way to share and learn with fellow photographers. Very different than just sharing with the average person and getting “likes”.
There goes my memory again, Thought I had already commented. Apparently not.
Excellent work and good call on the processing tweaks. The warmth of the playa works nicely and contrast well with the darker/cooler clouds. I like this very much and agree with your points about the distant trees; I’d leave them in. In addition, I don’t think it’s necessary to clean up the foreground (although a clone of the single white object was good.) I think the other “stuff” that you cloned out in the repost provided some texture/interest in the immediate foreground and also kinda helped take away any hint of the tire tracks…
I like the drama in the sky, but it feels a bit dark (or maybe lacking contrast) relative to the foreground yellow. The warm/cool color contrast works very well here.
