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
What are your emotional reactions to this? The title was derived from the subject; the Uebehebe Crater in Death Valley.
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
This not actually in the crater itself but off the road that ascends it. This was shot during a workshop. I tried following the group but quickly broke off and did my own thing. Converting it to b&w was an afterthought. I actually composed it with tonality in mind but later found that some of the colors didn’t work.
Technical Details
GFX50R, 32-64mm, f/11
Specific Feedback
The question with these type of images is what kind of light will people be seeing it in. Are the blacks too deep? The rules seem to suggest so. Yet that’s the point of being black.
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
I feel alone and pensive but not afraid. I had not heard of the Uebehebe Crater before looking it up, fascinating area, Igor. The lighting on the tumble weeds is fantastic. Ok, so I’ve read your description now and understand the lighting. B&W works well.
Hi @Igor_Doncov, As Linda points out, the side light on the tumbleweeds is lovely giving them quite a glow. But I’m having a hard time entering the image as it doesn’t give me a sense of movement or flow of energy through the beautifully textured but static blacks. I also have to pick up on something John pointed out, that it is time to clean your sensor as there are two large marks one on the left of the sky just above the horizon and one on the right about the same distance from the edge as the other but about twice as far above the horizon.
This appears to be near the top of a cinder cone. Late in the day, sunlight just hitting the tops of the bushes. This is a great effect but the organization of the bushes results in almost a straight line going from mid-foreground to the rear of the background. I keep looking at it expecting something more. Perhaps if there had been more of a curve for the eye to follow…?
I could be as simple as giving it a gentle brushing with an antistatic brush. A blast of air from a rocket blower on the bristles makes sure it is clean. Take light delicate strokes over the full surface of the sensor, that usually does the trick. I use one of these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000LQQQZQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
There are more serious wet cleaning kits but I’d take it in to see what your shop says if the simple brush trick fails to solve things…
Dear Igor, thanks for sharing you image of this scene. The low sidelight is captivating and makes the shrubs stand out and enhances their form. The massive and dark barren ground certainly contributes to the depressing feeling of the image. The perspective and spacing of the shrub in the foreground effectively isolate it from the group of shrubs in the middle ground, which may, aesthetically speaking, be an advantage or a disadvantage: An advantage, because it enhances the sad feeling of loneliness; a disadvantage, because it may cause a visual disconnect between foreground and the middle ground. Still, well seen. PS: Is it just me, or is there a sensor spot in the shy, left side, just above the horizon, and another on the right side, also above the horizon?
This makes me think of endings, that stage where the circle of life completes its revolution and we return to the beginning. My Great Grandpa lived to be just over 100, so I knew him well. I’ve wondered as I’ve aged what it was like for him to lose all his contemporaries over the years, and an image like this feels that way to me. (My wife just walked by and said "That evokes light in the middle of darkness; a ray of hope.)
I think overall this is a wonderful image Igor. For me, this is really the story of the foreground, and I think the top 2/3 of the image is just right to support that. And because of that, I like it better with the bottom 1/3 opened up a bit brighter.
Just wanted to briefly say that those dust spots in the sky are not dust spots. I checked the raw file and they’re not there. Therefore they must have been introduced during processing. That’s not surprising because the sky had most of the work done one it. This has happened before. It usually occurs during a mask creation or modification. While the brush tool is active it often is necessary to scroll from side to side. This is done by moving fingers across the screen sideways. Sometime photoshop interprets this as augmenting the mask and leaves a spot where you first touched the screen to scroll. I hope this isn’t confusing to read. Thank you for bringing it to my attention and let me know how you dealt with this issue.
No. MacBook Pro. But you make a good point the fingers during scrolling do not touch the screen. They work on the pad below the keyboard. The problem is the same. Pressure on the pad is interpreted erroneously as painting with the brush.
Shades of Ansel Adams! Very simple in its complexity, or is that complex in its simplicity. This sort of high contrast black and white image makes presentation very tricky since you can have no idea how it is being viewed and under what conditions. Even if my monitor is calibrated there can be a huge difference between a matt screen like my Benq or the liquid retina display of my MacBook Pro, which is glossy and presents as a higher contrast. I have one of each and what I see is quite different, especially B&W images, on the one over the other. Let’s face it, there are only two ways in which you can assure this image is seen as you intend it - either as a print or published as part of a physical book either of which reduces your audience to a very select few at best.
I had another look at this dust bunny issue and I found that I could reproduce it in the raw image if I used the Levels adjustment and dropped the main levels to almost complete darkness. Another words drop the white tones multiple f stops. Then a dark circle appears in that area. I don’t know if that’s a dust bunny or I’ve stressed the dynamic range capabilities beyond their recovery limits and am starting to get artifacts. Anyway, it’s not due to scrolling as I initially thought.
@Igor_Doncov – You probably know this, but after being lulled by a clean sensor for a while I tend to forget this trick. If you open an unedited copy of the raw file in ACR and click the remove tool on the right side of the display, it opens a tool control box and one of the options toward the bottom of the list is a check box for visualize spots. By default it thinks nearly everything is a spot but you can use the slider to adjust the sensitivity have it display just the real dust spots for easy id/cleanup. HTH
Hi Igor,
This is a very fascinating and engaging desert landscape. The subdued light on the sagebrush is sublime and I love the range of tones you captured. For some reason the illuminated sagebrush seem to be multiplying and reminds me of the tribbles in an old Star Trek episode. Wonderful image.
Igor, I strongly suspect the spots are dust or water. Probably not water considering where you were. I once discovered multiple “invisible” dust spots in one of my skies by selecting the sky and hitting auto tone in PS. I was amazed.
That aside, I really like this. It has a great appeal to me visually. I really like the contrast between the dark ground and the high lighted brushes.
