Southern Oregon coast last Sunday.
There are people on the cliff for scale.
The largest waves I have ever witnessed.
A ton of mist and spray, a lot of clarity and contrast applied to see through the haze…
Successfull?
Is this a composite: No
D610, 24-70 @ 32mm.
That tide must be something to behold! The waves are pretty epic. I think this quite a good image with some strong compositional elements and also a story to tell. I think there are certain things that could be done to achieve a more powerful image.
I’ll be honest and say I’m not really sure where I sit with this image Dan. I think it conveys the epicness of the power of the waves really well against the big cliffs. I do think that, despite the people in the image, that you are losing a sense of scale of the scene. To me if you have people in the scene to give a sense of scale they need to be prominent to really hit the size message home.
I think the composition slightly lets the image down here too. You have a lot of great leading lines and points of interest in this image where all the action is (blue lines), but they are all on the right hand side; leaving a big void to the left of the waves. I cropped the image to 5:4 to remove the void. This helps focus the waves crashing onto the rocks as the main attraction with less empty space. I also rotated the image anti clockwise by 2 degrees as I noticed that the unconformity just below where the people are standing is not flat.
Regarding the mood. I would like to have seen this processed in a more ethereal way. Really enhacing the mist and spray that you removed with the contrast/dehaze adjustment. I think by removing it you have lost something from the scene. Maybe to enhance the mood more and really convey the power you could darken the image a bit so the light that is catching the waves is more of a feature.
Cheers,
Eugene
Thanks Eugene, I really appreciate the thoughtful critique. I honestly dont know whether scenes like this is landscape photography or photo journalism… I did not want the people too large in the frame as I was making this more of a Landscape photo vs. what I consider sort of photo journalism.
I could have left much more mist, there was a lot but you really lose the cliffs… so here is a 4 x 5 that i posted on instagram, it may be more what you were looking for…
Hi Dan,
I hear and feel the power of that surf! Nice image. My only negative is it feels bright. Maybe others good put that into words better. I personally do not like people in pics and had to search to find them so I was okay with them being unnoticeable.
I like your handling of color in this image. It’s always one of your strongest features. I understand the arguments for a modified composition but I still think the original looks great. That tall pine defying the power from the left is an important element and I would not eliminate it. The far right is pretty domineering in both color and tonality but, like I said, it IS the story.
I agree with Igor, for me the the resolute pine is essentially as important to the story as the cliffs themselves. I think the image is weakened substantially if it is cropped away. I think the original composition may have been influenced by including the faint rainbow. So to some degree your original post with the rainbow and the people does have an element of Photojournalism, telling a PJ story. If you wanted to tell a more traditional landscape image nature story, I personally like the tweaks suggested by @Eugene_Theron.
