Late afternoon light at mesquite dunes. I tilted the camera to capture diagonal lines and patterns.
What technical feedback would you like if any?
Any
What artistic feedback would you like if any?
Composition and colour. I think the image can only work with the right comp and the right colour balance. I went for an earthy colour balance here.
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
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Wonderful set of diagonals spotted and presented here! I really like the colors and different tonalities, moving to almost golden in some spots. I enjoyed zooming in and looking at the small ripples and textures everywhere. It beautiful to fill the frame completely this way, how many mm did you use here? The only minimal comment I can think of cloning, cropping or warping out the small line with tonality shift in the lower left corner, but that is really nitpicking.
Beautiful light, and great color. I love the diagonals and the sweeping curves. You might consider cloning those dark spots in the upper left quadrant and also the small wedge in very lower left corner.
This would make a very nice print. Well done!
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Wonderfully crafted dunescape, Nathan. The diagonals are superb as are the textures and details in the larger version. Of course the lighting in this scene is outstanding and creates some lovely depth to the image. No suggestions from me.
Simply, just a gorgeous dune image. Outstanding job using the longer focal length to zoom in and isolate the beautiful lines, color and contrasts. I love the colors here with the dunes having a metallic, copper look to more neutral areas - surrounded by glorious highlights and richly developed shadows.
Other than the already mentioned sliver of sand in the LLC - no nits or suggestions. Wonderful imagery.
An outstanding landscape!
As almost everyone else mentioned I like the diagonals, color seem fine with me.
The only tiny āissueā I could think of is the lower left corner, where I find the small triangle a bit distractingā¦
Nathan, this is really nice, tilting the camera was a great idea. I actually like the color a lot, itās more āgoldenā than many dune images, but I think it works pretty well. The shadows and lines create a wonderful 3D ātextureā to this image.
The diagonals, crisp lines, texture, and composition are amazing. Itās hard to get my eyes off this image it is so amazing. You do a superb job of creating an intimate landscape out of a broad scene that communicates far more than the big landscape would. Were the folds in the sand this close together or did you compress them somehow? Can you explain more about how you created this - expand on your comment about tipping the camera. Thanks for sharing this image as it is most instructive in addition to being a super creation.
I think the 400mm focal length helped to compress the folds as this scene was a few hundred yards away. I remember seeing the layers in the field and zoomed in, I then set up my tripod so I could make a longer exposure and when I placed the camera on the tripod it was unlevel as I was standing on another dune. I noticed that it looked better with the off level tripod head and refined the comp from there. So it was a bit of a happy accident. This image is about 15 degrees off level.
From a processing point of view most of the effort was adjusting contrast particularly in the mid-tones. I masked separate layers and added or removed contrast to help it stand out or take less attention depending on where it was situated in the frame.
I also added a color fill layer with a blend mode of hard light to add color contrast to the shadows to help the highlight areas pop. The colour used is the opposite color to the highlights on the adobe colour wheel.
The screen shot below may give you an idea of the process. Iād be happy to go into more details.
Wow, this is exceptionally beautiful, Nathan. Probably one the the more compelling dune abstracts I recall seeing. Other than that small wedge in the LLC, composition and processing look great to me.
