The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
We raced to Olmstead Point in the late afternoon on a Friday ahead of a coming storm that was predicted to drop a few inches of snow along the Tioga Rd and the NPS was scheduled to close the road by 6 pm. We arrived just after sunset with enough time to catch twilight. I wish I had more light on Half Dome, but I made due with what was there. Clouds Rest is to the left, with hey! a cloud actually coming to rest there - how funny. We left this location well after dark, hoping to get some night photos before the storm rolled in, but we were soon covered over in fog. It did snow overnight in the high country, but only rained on us down in the Valley. The next morning was nice though, as I will show shortly.
Specific Feedback
Just wondering if this composition works. I have tried many different compositions in the past, and they never really worked for me. How does this one work?
Technical Details
Nikon D850, Nikon 50mm f/1.8 MF lens at f5.6, 1/10 sec at ISO 100.
Processed in ACR and PS.
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
Nice peaceful scene. I used to love to photograph from this spot. This is a bit late though because of the subsequent drive in the darkness. The panorama works well because of the long sweeping diagonals. Getting a parking spot at this place was always challenging.
Youssef, this pano works very well. I like the big diagonals coming in from the right, showing the depth of the view. The mix of clouds and color in the sky is very attractive. In viewing, the lands feels a bit too magenta, but, of course, I wasn’t there…
A very nice panorama highlighted by the sweeping diagonals as others have mentioned. My one major suggestion would be about colour. This is something I’ve been paying more attention to through my work with photographer, David duChemin. I’m looking here at the relationship between the land and the sky. The sky is chiefly in the colour range between yellow and yellow orange. If you were to look at a colour wheel, you’d see that the compliment to that range would be cerulean blue to violet. So, I think this picture would be stronger if you shifted the land area from the purple/magneta range as you have it now, more towards the blue/violet range. This is me personally - I don’t know what you actually saw when you made this picture and really, besides you, who will ever know. What matters is the mood you want to convey and this is where working with the colour wheel can really make a difference.
I think it works pretty well.
A few things I noticed:
I am not a fan of when the comp goes right into the corner. I’d try make it so the sky and land don’t meet exactly I the corner of the upper left.
Huge fan of those trees upper right and wondered if you had any tighter crops of that area - that’s amazing stuff in there.
The trees in the center bottom take up a lot of real estate but don’t really add much to the scene. I don’t really know how to resolve this but it is one of the challenges of the panoramic format.
Especally for NPN, I’d remove or make the watermark MUCH smaller.
Beautiful sunset from an iconic spot Youssef. I like the ideas provided by @Kerry_Gordon regarding colors here. I would experiment at least to see if you could move the dial on the bottom portion a bit more to the magenta side.
@Kerry_Gordon thank you for bringing up the color wheel and complimentary colors. I was trying to balance the colors in a complimentary fashion. I guess I did not see the magenta creeping in, although it is subtle. What I was trying to preserve, although very small in the photo, is the subtle magenta/pink highlight in the cloud hovering over by Clouds Rest and even more subtly in the cloud just in front of Half Dome. Further, the land did not seem very blue even though the camera did pick up a lot of blue on the land. I did warm the land up. I can back that warming off and see what how it turns out. I will post above as a repost.
@Matt_Payne , than k you for your suggestions on composition. I was trying to find a crop that hit as many of the power points in a rule-of-thirds sort of way. The attached image shows what I mean.
I have the horizon line at the top third, and Half Dome at the intersection of the top and right third. I have two lines in Clouds Rest on the left edge starting at both the top and bottom thirds lines, and the same on the right edge the thirds lines meat features. And finally the left third and bottom third meat at a point very close to the start of the FG tree line. While I did not like the horizon line meeting the top left corner either, I considered it as a compromise for hitting all the other points.
Further, I was not happy with the heaviness of the FG trees either but there really was nothing I could do with them. And finally my watermark, is just still living in the old web days when swiping an image off the internet was a thing and watermarks were the only way to some control over your image. I will keep that in mind for other photos in the future.
This is a really nice image and I think that the panoramic aspect ratio really suits the scene. The colours, especially in the repost also look really good to me.
Beautiful image and interesting discussion. The repost is a little cooler in the land, but by removing some magenta it is a tiny bit darker as well. I like that, the contrast with the sky is enhanced not only in color but also in brightness.
And yes, a smal strip of sky above the mountain in the ULC would have been nice.
