As I stood on the opposite cliff waiting for sunset, things didn’t look promising because of the heavy cloud cover. Then the clouds opened up enough to produce this. Mom never ceases to suprise.
As usual, any comments or suggestions would be welcome.
Is this a composite: No
f/11, 1/30 sec, ISO 400, Canon 5D II, 70-200 L lens at 100mm
A lovely subtle scene with wonderful IQ and pleasing color. I wonder, though, if the clouds in the upper sky are interesting enough to place the horizon in the center. For me, the full sky would work in a horizontal with much more canvas below, but if that wasn’t possible I’d consider cropping out about the top half (or a little more) of the sky.
I like the contrasting warm / cool layers in the composition. I am a little torn about the foreground ledge in the bottom of the frame. I find myself either wanting to see more of it or none at all. Of course I’m not sure what was out of the frame on the bottom.
There is some good drama in the sky here. But on some other Grand Canyon images posted here, people have commented that shooting at the canyon can tempt you into creating 50/50 horizon images. While this is subjective on my part, I’m not sure 50/50 works in this case. I think alternative crops could go in either direction. But I prefer the first one.
Thanks for the comments on the crop. I"ve tried multiple different versions, all have their pros and cons. I’m posting the original photo and then the crop that is my current favorite. Oh, and by the way, I have been trying out using linear profiles in ACR as suggesting in a post by Tony Kuyper on this website, and I’m impressed with the results. It’s easier to get better colors. These photos were edited first in ACR using linear profiles and then finished off in Photoshop.
