Please share your first response before reading the hidden notes below. The photographer is looking for an unbiased initial impression.
Feedback Focus: Artistic / Expressive
Questions for Viewers
Clearly a landscape, what pleases me most about this image is the pathway through an indeterminate place. Direction and purpose, but with satisfaction? What do you see, and is there enough there to keep you engaged?
About This Image
This was made at Badwater, Death Valley National Park, from Dante’s View. The processing is intended to remove context and references, and focus on the stream running through the frame.
Technical Details
Processing is about removal of detail (anti-clarity), desaturation to limit the color range, and selecting the stream for emphasis via white balance. All done in Lightroom.
Feedback Requested
Any thoughts regarding lasting impressions would be appreciated.
Gary, I’d say that the idea and the view are quite intriguing. I do think that cropping to 3x2 so that the stream runs more corner to corner is likely to look better. It’s different, in a good way.
Gary: The color and movement through the frame is immediately compelling. The texture in the land form is a perfect complement IMO. I can see @Mark_Seaver comment regarding a classic landscape comp but this does work for me as is. Nicely see, conceived and executed. >=))>
Hi Gary,
Definitely enough to hold my attention. The foreground land is especially interesting. The land beyond the ribbon of azure looks more artificial (not necessarily a bad thing) so I might be inclined to bring back a tiny bit of clarity or micro contrast there. Love it as is too!
ML
Hi
The azure really pops and the textures in the land make it look otherworldly.
I think when you process to this extent you need to consider the image as an abstract and forget what the image was.
For me , the Azure line would be better a little more from corner to corner - either with a square crop or have a bit of fun with the perspective tool in LR . The contrast in the whole picture is very strong - and this has given a lot of artifact that is sharp and pulls the eye everywhere. You might consider playing and take the detail away by using Gaussian blur rather than using clarity and dehaze which are all contrast tools?
I have played - selected and masked the river as new layer, then Gaussian blur the original underneath. The various blend modes produce some interesting abstracts too.
Basically go with your vision and produce an image that YOU think fits your vision best.
I have a dislike of over sharpened images with artefacts - so this is out of my critique comfort zone - I hope my thoughts help?
I most definitely see a waterway running through a “space”. I say space, because I don’t know if it’s a landscape, a beach, an aerial or a macro for that matter. And so, this also definitely keeps me engaged, and exploring.
First thing, excellent job in the processing and emphasizing the color of the water; the warm/cool color contrast is engaging to say the least, and beautiful to say the most.
For me the area below the waterway looks like a wet, sandy beach reflecting the light early or late in the day. It just has that look. Then, above the water, it turns in to a landscape, a desert or a plain. And there’s really no scale, so this remains engaging, even mysterious. Love this!
I do think this is excellent as presented. My only thought for a change might be to crop equally top and bottom. At the bottom, the dark line is a bit incongruous and so I would crop to remove that line. And perhaps, but not as important, an equal crop up top as the upper 20% or so is a little redundant (not a bad thing really.) I did a quick crop with the new tool as an example.
Regardless, this is wonderful! Congrats on the vision and also the processing to achieve your goal!
Great image. Definitely enough to keep me engaged. For me adds that element of mystery and the unknown. I did like the idea of maybe playing around with the cropping.
Engaged? Yes. I like as is, but also think a limited crop works well, too. Viewing Lon’s crop, I would not crop the top and would crop higher than Lon at the bottom (a little more than twice as far).
wow. I just love the color contrast here Gary. I wouldn’t change a thing about that. Cropping a bit to bring it diagonally more centered might work better, but I would not make it corner to corner, as that is just a little too obvious IMHO. I am most definitely ENGAGED!
Sensational! Very mysterious. That blue water? is clearly the star of the show as it should be. It’s almost a black and white with that bright blue color pulling the eye through the scene. I have no idea what this is or where you shot this but it’s very unique. I also can’t tell if this has sand or reflected water in the foreground and the background. I really love the highly textured foreground and the flow from side to side in this area. The upper background section is quite different…More contours, shadows, blacks and depth making this entire image very abstract. Your processing seems intentional and highly creative. I’m interested in what you have to say in the blurred out area…
I never would have guessed. One of my favorite places in the park when it’s open. You did an excellent job of processing this into an abstract from a well know location. Kudos to you, Gary!
