Working on this & I’d love some feedback - the idea was to use the foreground rocks & direction of the water to lead the eye through to the sunrise, I’ve intentionally tried to bring the saturation down & do what I help to help the composition
What technical feedback would you like if any?
I’d love to know what peoples thoughts are regarding the composition, colour & whatever
A few things I’m specifically curious about are
whether or not the rock on the left is too dark
if the dodging of the large rock in the foreground helps or hinders
What artistic feedback would you like if any?
Whatever you’ve got, I’ll hear anything
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
single shot, under a second, brought into lightroom then to photoshop with camera raw, luminosity masks to bring down the light & dodge/burning for the highlights in the rocks
I was scrolling through the timeline and wanted to complement you on an amazing composition. The colors are magical and the contrast between the horizon and sky/water makes the image!
You definitely achieved the leading lines goal between the water and the rocks. Saturation looks on target at least to me (I tend towards color and saturation myself). I like the dark rock you mention. Dodging helps in the foreground to me to hook the viewer into the lines.
If I had a nit at all, I would perhaps try and bring out a little more contrast in the clouds perhaps. Sean Bagshaw has a youtube video on cloud sculpting that might be worth experimenting with but you could seriously leave things as is.
Dale, this is great. By far my favourite image of teh ones you’ve posted for cc. I’m going to disagree with @michael_tomcal about the clouds. I think they fit the scene quite well as they are. The sky complements the foreground textures quite nicely. I think defining them any more could detract from the rest of the image. It’s dramatic but also quite. If you do go down that path, and you may want to anyways, I would consider setting the white point for the foreground. Just to add a bit more contrast between the whites of the waves and dark streaks in-between.
Dale - a very powerful composition that to my eye is well balanced from L/R and foreground/background. The dominance of the water coming at the viewer here is a very strong element. The texture of the water is very appealing also. I like what @Eugene_Theron said about being careful to further enhancing texture in the clouds as it may compete with the foreground. I think he’s got a great point there. Also, there’s a bunch of dust spots in the near foreground that should be easy to clean up.
Over the years, I’ve become increasingly careful of the white balance attributed to water in seascapes and river/waterfall images. This of course is a matter of taste and gets in to the desires and intent of the artist: some seeking a more stylized presentation to the photograph. For my eye, the cyan color cast to the water is strong and I’d be tempted to pull that back some.
Overall, I think this is a tremendous and powerful image! The color cast is really an artistic choice.
