A wide image from a recent trip to the South Dakota Badlands.
I haven’t posted any of my 2020 images anywhere, but what better place than here? What better time than now? This might be my favorite 2020 image, but I’ll be posting a few more here for this weekly challenge.
Specific Feedback Requested:
I’d take any feedback, but one thing I thought a lot about was which areas to dodge and which to burn. There’s a lot of options in this image.
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
Is this a composite?
35mm, f/14, 4 sec, ISO 100
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This is an excellent landscape photo, Brent! I can see why it would be a favorite. Exposure, colors and details are all very good and it really has a lot of depth. Was this an aerial photo or taken from a high peak?
Brent, this does a great job of capturing the badlands and how they taper off into the plains to the south. I think your work on the ridges in the lower right (I’m assuming some dodging there…) works well and pulling eyes into the middle and distant part of the view. Having spent time there in spring 2019, I do think that the reds are two saturated. One of my take aways was that while the forms and textures were amazing, the colors in most of the landscape were quite muted. Given what I think I see in your treatment here, I’m going back to revisit some of my shots… Thanks for the ideas.
Great view of a tortured landscape. The thin sliver of sky or back ridges (can’t quite tell) leaves me wanting a bit more of it, just to give the distant hills some breathing room. Minor. Otherwise, looks really good.
Very cool! I love the colors of the foreground hills and the golden background grasses(?). That tiny strip of light background at the top feels cramped; perhaps just a bit more on the top. Or maybe go more abstract and don’t have that light strip at all.
Wow. Super cool image. A lot of texture to it. Its the type of image I think would look good printed big. I do agree with Harley. The thin bright strip at the top of the frame does pull the eye a bit. Maybe just a tiny little crop to remove it.
Thanks all for the thoughts! I suppose I brought out the reds a bit - I try not to do so with saturation, but with a selective colors layer and contrast. I can try toning it down a bit but I am ok with a slight departure from reality.
I agree about the top - I spent a lot of time trying to get it right. Unfortunately there is no extra space in my exposure. Before it was pretty contrasty and quite blue, so I was trying to make it draw the eye less by making it less saturated and dark to give the impression of it going on forever.
Thanks Gary! Most overlooks at the badlands start from a high place and then look down toward the plains below. This is just from the ground at one of those overlooks.
A beautiful landscape, Brent . What I noticed when looking at it was that it seemed as if I were looking at two images. I’d find myself roaming around the upper half of the image and looking right past the lower half, then vice versa. That may be good or bad, I’m not sure, but my instinct would be to try to smooth that transition a bit.
I think part of what makes images like these so great is you can look at them for 20 minutes and find new things all the time, you explore different areas and find different things that interest you each time! The discussion about what to do with the background is interesting…I wonder if you cropped right beyond the main central peak in the distance if that could help with some of that. I agree with you on the colors, I think you pushed them to a good point, maybe a departure from reality, but not wild and still pleasing! When it comes to the comment from @Dennis_Plank, I wonder if you could help with that in your choice of what to dodge and burn. I took a very quick crack at this trying to focus on the center of the image and pull you from the peaks in the foreground along the ridge on the left to the peak in the center just by dodging the tops of the ridges and burning the little valleys around them. This is a really cool shot and I would be happy if it were mine!
This might be my favorite 2020 image, but I’ll be posting a few more here for this weekly challenge.
