Order in chaos

This is an image from my pre - lock down hikes on Mt. Olympus, Greece, taken on the spot where I stopped for a snack and a hot cup of coffee on my way back. I can clearly remember my doubts on if I could get something here, when setting up my tripod. Gave it a try anyway, and decided that maybe I had something when I reviewed the images on my computer.
… The scenery really looked chaotic to me, with the multitude of boulders and rocks, with their muted gray-brown colors, and all those sharp edges and still water… There’s ain’t any ambience or relaxing feeling here. I tried to capture something nevertheless, centering my frame on that little dry twig, which was really underlining this feeling of ruggedness and desolation I was getting from my surroundings. Still, the composition worked for me at the end. What do you think? How does this look to you?

Single shot, cropped and processed to taste with Lightroom.

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Hi Nikos. I can see why you found this attractive. It does seem like a tranquil spot. The processing, to me, makes this more somber than I think was the intention. I would raise the darks and midtones to add more luminosity to the scene. I also find the reflections in the fg pool confusing. A polarizer would have helped. There is very little color in the image so a b&w would seem like a good idea, but I like the subtle color that does exist.

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Hi Igor … yep, you spotted the reflections in the pool … I don’t like them either. I did use a circular polarizer, but still could not get rid off those reflections entirely, as I said a pretty challenging environment, that one. On luminosity, the scene was originally much darker, and had to raise the overall exposure level, and shadows even more so, until I came to this.
… I appreciate your feedback, thank you :slight_smile:

I like this. Shows that beauty can be found beyond the “grand landscapes”. I like the starkness of it. And I’m also going against the grain and saying I like the reflection. Without it you wouldn’t even know the water was there. JMHO. I do find the dark branch in the URC a little distracting.

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Hi Michael, thank you for your feedback.
Yes, having the plethora of impressive and technically immaculate grand vistas, I am trying to find more personal scenes, where beauty is more open to each one’s subjective interpretation, or is not the prerequisite anyway.
On the diagonal branch+leaves on the upper right corner, I agree, I would also like to be able to have a version of this scene without it. But, it was there, and I didn’t have wiggle room to get it out by moving myself around. I could remove it via post-processing, but I have so far generally avoided removing major parts of a composition that way. These kind of imperfections remind me of the whole experience and process I went through, trying to capture a scene on a particular place and time. They kind of keep me grounded, if that makes sense.

Nikos, given the amount of chaos and complexity in this scene, I think you did a pretty good job composing it to create some order within the scene. The placement of the rocks and foreground log feels like a well balanced composition. I would agree with Mike Lowe about the branch in the upper right being a distraction. Perhaps if you had gotten down lower and closer to the log you might have been able to exclude the branch.

Given the lack of color in the image, and the nice texture in the rocks, I might also try this as a B&W.

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Hi Edi thank you for your feedback.
… I did try BW, goes without saying. Went for this one ultimately. On that branch, as we all agree it had no right to be there, I’m waiting for this lock down to end, and then I’ll revisit the scene… with a saw. That’s will take care of things! :innocent:

Nikos,

I like this very much! I think you’ve done a fantastic job creating some order out of chaos - yes, a busy scene. What struck me was how well organized and balanced the scene is; there is no one single element that distracts or dominates the scene. Top to bottom, left to right and corner to corner, everything contributes. Even the leaves and tree branch UR - there is enough included that once can’t say they should be cropped/removed - they are not a distraction.

I vote for retaining the color version. Yes, a seemingly good candidate for b&w, but even without experimenting, I think the lack of color will dramatically take away from being able to distinguish features and limit the ability of the eye to explore the frame.

My only suggestion really would be to raise the shadow detail a tad on the face of the large rock, LR, but that’s minor.

Well done and I think great job on your cropping choice (without having seen the orig)

Lon

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Hi Lon,

Glad you liked my composition on chaos, thank you :slight_smile:

On the large rock on bottom right, you are spot on, and caught a major weakness of the original image. That area was very underexposed. The face of that rock was completely black and without any features or texture. The water beneath it was almost equally underexposed. I pulled exposure & shadows on the area quite a bit using gradient filters and brush adjustments in Lightroom. I stopped at a point where the image still - hopefully- looked natural. That’s a main consideration on my side, I don’t want my images looking over processed. Some things can simply cannot be resolved by post-processing, I accept that as a part of the process.

Cheers, Nikos

Hi Nikos,
amazing composition! It makes my eyes to traverse the image from the very bottom to the top with no obstacle. Yes, I wish the branch in TRC was not there.
Best,
Lana

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Thank you for the feedback Lana :slight_smile:

Hi Nikos,
your image is very well captured and edited, but due to the soft light it’s quite flat, the photo has no depth. It’s not obviously visible that the second waterfall is far behind the first one. Old classic painting masters used to add a bit of haze, or rather mist to the background, but you didn’t have a mist-machine with you… :wink:
Of course you could add some mist with Photoshop, but I’ve tried something else: added a new layer in photoshop, whereas this layer doesn’t do anything special, just mix with SOFT light, not normal mode. That’s it. The result I’ve added here. Due to this trick, the waterfalls and the creek are now the “hero of the shot” (quote of Gina Milicia). Previously, the textures of the rocks were too dominant for the falls.
Anyway, photography is an art, if you say my version is just crap, you’re completely right, since this is your personal piece of art.
BTW, now the photo is a bit darker except the creek and the falls, I forgot to brighten it accordingly…

Hello Helge,

Apologies for the late response… I’ve been pretty inactive the last month or more here, been very busy at work.
So: Thank you for the time you have put in, to provide your take on my image… it’s unexpected to me, that people can get inspired by an image of mine, as to spend some time to tweak it to their liking. I do like your version, it has a significantly different feel than mine. The added smoothness on the surrounding provides a soothing effect, if I can put it like that. Very interesting… thanks for your input and time here.

Nikos

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Thx, you’re welcome! :slight_smile: