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
Can you relate? Most visitors to this region, South Coyote Buttes in Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, Arizona, are so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of diverse large-grand landscapes, that it is easy to walk right by something as delicate as this and not see it.
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
Close view of delicate, parallel strata, fragile fins in eroded sandstone, South Coyote Buttes of Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, Arizona.
Technical Details
iPhone 13 Pro Max; 1.57mm-9mm @ 5.7mm; f/1.5 @ 1/750 sec; ISO 50
Specific Feedback
Is the erosion interesting/attractive? Can you imagine the time required to create these forms? Do they say anything to you?
As a geologist, I have to say that this is VERY cool and intrinsically interesting to me. It seems like the orange stripes are related to the white dike, but I’m not sure how they formed.
The only nit I see is a bit of a boot print on the lower left part of the frame.
Ah yes, VOF. What a gorgeous place! First of all Bob, cool shot and technically well done. I feel like there is a leading line to … what? I keep looking for the point of interest and can’t find one. Actually leading lines!
That was my experience in that general area as well. The landscape is so over the top there that it overwhelms you.
The sense I get is of dripping water but I know I can do better if I look long enough.
I like the composition just fine but there are some strong vertical elements here and I feel that a vertical, a fairly wide vertical, would work well also.
I generally don’t like to look at images as recordings of the subject itself. I prefer to use them as springboards for my imagination. So I try not to think of the history of the object or it’s mineral content etc. I find that to get in the way of vision.
Thank you @ Bonnie Lampley for your informed comments. My studies in geology are limited, ongoing and driven by the desire to know what I am looking at in the field as well as possible scenarios for their creation. I am currently reading John McPhee’s “Annals of the former world.”
Removing what you see as a boot print is relatively easy to accomplish in post processing. I did not alter it in this case because a friend who formerly shot for NatGeo had an image rejected because he noted in the submission that he had made the alterations. If I were to sell this as art, not documentary, I would remove the boot print.
Thank you @Robert_Mance for your observations. I viewed this as a bit of abstract of intersecting lines. It is not a true abstract since one can easily recognize the content. The point where intersecting lines, horizontal and vertical occur, is the focal point.
The Valley of Fire (VOF) is in Nevada.
Thank you @ Igor Doncov for your observations. I did make a 4x5 vertical format but it lacked some impact because the left side of the horizontal layer became less attractive.
When I am in the field I am looking until I see what I am looking at. I do not indulge in entertaining how and why something I see came to be until I have the image captured and begin processing. Knowing the “how and why” helps me to process the image in a way that may make those answers interesting enough to make the composition more compelling. It is not “just a rock.”
This is quite fascinating! I like your title and to me, rather than seeing a trickle of water, I see the vertical as flowing sand… further enhancing the notion of time, or like an hour glass. The lacey vertical pattern also makes me think of a snake - And then those repeating verticals to the left are fascinating by themselves. All bput together with those very delicate horizontal fins… I think this comes together quite beautifully.
No nits or suggestions. Beautifully seen and captured. And for sure, it’s so easy and common to overlook little gems like this! Kudos!
Yeah, been there many times. I’m sure both of us could spend a month there and still not run out of stuff to shoot. Good point on the POF … you are correct. I love the image, and the place.
