Waterhole, Escalante

For me, the slickrock wonderland north of the town of Escalante, UT, is an abstract shooter’s dream. I pulled off the road and walked across the landscape, shooting the multicolored rocks, cacti, litter, and dry washes. I can spend hours out there in visual Heaven.

Specific Feedback Requested

I’m sharing this image because I stood at the edge of this feature, which was steep sided and about 25 feet across, and shot down on the dry waterhole – good image, but unavoidably shot at a slant. So in processing, I used the “distort” function to stretch the image to look like I had shot it with a drone from directly above. Like others, I have many ethical concerns about altering natural images, but in this case, the scene was already a chaos of ripples and colors – not a straight line in sight – so it seems almost harmless to bend it for the desired effect.

Technical Details

Handheld in bright sunlight, F10, 14MM lens.

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Hi James – This is a great subject and has all kinds of abstract qualities to enjoy, especially the obscured sense of scale. Overall, I like the composition since it feels like a vortex with all kinds of interesting details. I wonder what the scene might look like in softer light since the shadow changes the flow of the scene (I am not sure if the lack of the shadow and softer light would improve the scene or not but do). I also don’t think any of your stretching looks obviously unnatural.

I do have a few comments about the processing. It looks like there are some color casts in the shadows (magenta/purple and some yellow). I would expect this shadow to be a bit more neutral or cool-toned, so those colors look a bit unnatural to me. You also could consider a gentler approach to the processing. I think the strong contrast is distracting a bit from the interesting subject. For example, I might soften the deeper tones by brightening them a bit and soften the lighter tones by darkening them a bit, with the overall effect of reducing the contrast overall. I know this all comes down to personal taste but I think a gentler approach to the processing would let the subject itself speak a bit more loudly.

Much appreciated Sarah and I’ll try all your suggestions.
Really like your work and am inspired to see an abstract specialist featured on NPN. My eye can’t resist abstract opportunities in nature.