Sunset Beach w/ Two Orientations

Image Critiques
1

Landscape Orientation (tidied up some dark branch collars, etc.):

IMG5DMarkIV_0144NPNWebLrg-8
IMG5DMarkIV_0144NPNWebLrg-81200×960 1.26 MB

Original:

Image(s)

IMG5DMarkIV_0144NPNWebLrg-2.jpg
IMG5DMarkIV_0144NPNWebLrg-2.jpg960×1200 1.33 MB

Image Description

When I saw the weekly challenge topic for this week, I marched over to a neighbor’s house and knocked on their door:

Me: “Could I photograph your Paper Bark Maple?”

Neighbor: “Of course!” with a quizzical look.

Me: “I’m going to use a tripod and might be here for an hour or so, not just take a walk-by cell phone pic, so I thought I should ask. I’ll probably look like a city employee inspecting trees for invasive species or something.”

Neighbor: “Oh, I’m glad you let me know (chuckling). Yeah, take your time and let me know how it goes.”

And so I did. I used both my 100mm macro and my trusty 24-105mm. I took a bunch of images, some not as crisp as I would like (I forgot how that macro lens at f/22 still has very shallow dof when close to the subject!!) I’m not much for stacking anymore, even though I hear the software is much improved.

So I came home with a couple dozen images, including some ICM, macro. None really made me smile (and the wind has kicked up for days and days since), so I was going to just share to share.

Then someone here – @franz – did a 90- degree rotation, and I started playing again. This view got me thinking that the photo of a bark is also a photo of something else, and in this case, it’s a beach at sunset with a breaker coming.

Not sure whether it works, but it worked better than I expected.

Feedback Requests

Always open to all feedback, as you know, including a yawn of disinterest. In particular though, I wonder…

  1. Does this strike you as a beach scene? Does it have that Minor White “what else is it about” equivalence quality?
  2. What could I do to accentuate the beach effect (crop off more “sand,” more “sky,” or use a saturation gradient )?
  3. Do I need to straighten its “horizon” now?
  4. Or should I just let it be bark?

Pertinent Technical Details

Canon 5D4 with 100mm macro
ISO 200, f/18, 1/50sec (it was breezy)
Cropped vertically, rotated 90degree CW

2

Very cool! Cultivate that neighbor! (All of ours have learned that I wander…) Maybe I’m in a literal mood but I mostly see this as bark – but very cool bark! And the texture of the “sand” is very nice, along with the vignette it contributes. The colors are gorgeous!!

Might be good for a double exposure with some breaking waves?

Or looking across a meadow with some limbs hanging down from the top?

3

Thanks Diane. Great ideas. I was just thinking that a beach scene is usual landscape orientation too. That might be worth trying.
ML

4

Diane I love both aspects, but I am partial to the landscape version. It reminds me of the Moroccan desert with its red colored sand set against the backdrop of the Atlas Mountains. I read warmth, heat, passion and relaxation. Bravo.

5

Marylynne, while I don’t see the beach scene, I sure do like the horizontal view and how different the top half is from the bottom half. I’m especially intrigued by “dots” near the bottom where it seems like the bark layer has become transparent.

6

Thanks, Mark. I believe that is an area that has not yet peeled or did so recently, leaving more vulnerable looking bark (kind of like a sun burn). It’s not at all flaky there, and the whole concept of “paper bark” is its tendency to turn the page constantly.
ML