Mount Moran and Sunflowers

[David_Starr]

While scouting for an Oxbow Bend/Mt Moran photo I noticed a truck traveling a secondary road in the distance. Afterwards, I drove to where I believed I saw the truck and turned onto the road to explore. I found this patch of sunflowers with Mt Moran in the BG.

I returned to this spot the next morning after taking my Oxbow Bend photos. While it doesn’t appear to be morning, it is. The magenta cast of the morning sun on the mountains that I had at Oxbow Bend had dissipated.

This is a three shot HDR photo. The dynamic range between each shot is two stops. The sunflowers were in heavy shadow from the trees behind me and exposed at 1/15s. The trees in mid photo were exposed at 1/60s. The mountains and sky was exposed at 1/250s.

Specific Feedback Requested

All of your thought are valued.

Is there anything that can be done to make the photo more dynamic?

Technical Details

Canon 5D IV | EF70-200 @ 78mm | f11 | ISO 100 | 1/15s, 1/60s 1/250s
Processed using ACR and Photoshop
Dodging and Burning

[David_Thompson]

David

You handled the DR here well! I like the multiple layers within the scene. I have some ideas with this image. First, I would shift the hues in the sky. Right now the sky is more cyan, but I would shift more towards blue. Next I would bring down those mid tones with adding a little more contrast to make the scene pop a bit more. Lastly, I would try a 5:4 crop, and get rid of some of the stuff on the right, that way you eye focuses more on the main mountain. I will be attaching 2 samples of the suggestions I’ve made.

DT

5:4 crop

[David_Starr]

Thank you for your critique. i live in the Midwest, so there isn’t a lot of grand landscapes to photo around here. When I’m somewhere that has grand landscapes, I tend to think every thing needs to be big. Your suggestions have certainly help my photo.