Please share your immediate response to the image before reading the photographer’s intent (obscured text below) or other comments. The photographer seeks a genuinely unbiased first impression.
Questions to guide your feedback
An unusual perspective of a familiar location/scene. Does it compare favorably with the more usual view.
Other Information
Please leave your feedback before viewing the blurred information below, once you have replied, click to reveal the text and see if your assessment aligns with the photographer. Remember, this if for their benefit to learn what your unbiased reaction is.
Image Description
Waning Gibbous moon sets over the Fire Wave formation, in this mid-morning view of the less-frequently photographed side, in Valley of Fire SP, Nevada. When I visited the state park service did not allow visitors access to the northernmost area of the park before sunrise or after sunset. The time required to drive to the parking area, coupled with the time required hike to this formation, eliminated the possibility of capturing good light i.e. Golden Hour. Hence B&W conversion, including employing the use of High Contrast Red filter to render the blue sky black, as described by Ansel Adams.
Technical Details
Canon EOS 5D II; Canon EF 28-70mm @ 55mm; f/16 @ 1/60 sec, ISO 100; Gitzo tripod, Canon RS-80N3 remote switch
Well, @Bob_Faucher, I am not sure of the locations, but I sure do like the image you made. The curves of the rocks leading from the bottom to the top to then be punctuated by the moon is just fantastic. I do like the little tree/bush in the center that then leads my eye up to the moon and back. Small ideas: Not sure all the rock at the bottom is helping, and seems like it might need a little more sky above the moon. Here is just an idea. I tried a crop to the left or right, but how you have this centered seems the strongest in that way. Even to leave it as is works very well.
Thank you @patrick6 for your comments and suggestions. You may be correct. I already added some sky to the top to place the moon farther from the frame edge. The crop you did on the bottom doesn’t remove anything critical but it does make the subject appear shorter/flatter.
The image was made in Valley of Fire SP, Nevada. The rock formation, when viewed from the north, is part of the “Fire Wave.”
The more I looked at this, the more I like it, especially the balancing shape of the little tree with the moon. The tones of the rock formation bounced my eye all over the frame, but that long central crack in the rock and the arrow of the top of the formation always bring it back to the moon, and then I bounce back to the tree and start all over. Nice!
