Where to Next?

This is my first post to NPN. Might as well be a critique, right? This is one of my favorites from a recent trip into the White Mountains of Eastern California. It was made at dawn. The dolomite on the slopes is a mostly white colored rock that catches and reflects any color that’s thrown at it. Makes for a great element in early morning light.

What technical feedback would you like if any?

Any is welcome.

What artistic feedback would you like if any?

Colors? Sometimes after looking at an image for too long I can’t tell if I need to town down or ramp up saturation.

Pertinent technical details or techniques:

Single exposure. Fujifilm X-T3, 16-80mm f/4 lens @ 80mm, f/11, 1/20sec, ISO 160.

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@dustinwaits

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I really like this. Great light on the rock and love the path of the road. I would be inclined to crop out the sky, putting more emphasis on the foreground and road and the sense of the road leading to the rock formation and valley beyond. Very well done.

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Welcome to NPN Dustin!. When I first saw the thumbnail I thought that looked like the White Mountains and the Bristlecone Pines. Very unique image. Well composed and thought out and the colors look spot on to me. Saturation looks natural to my eye. I love the road that leads the eye through the image and takes you towards the 3 or 4 Bristlecones catching good light.
I was just there about 3 weeks ago. The smoke from the all of the fires was so thick in the Owens Valley I could barely see the White mountains or the Sierra but was pleasantly surprised that when I got up to the very high elevations the smoke completely disappeared. Looks like you had a little smoke in the valley as well but not bad.
Great first post and looking forward to more.

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Thanks for the feedback, @Harley_Goldman! I actually did toy around with that idea of cropping out the sky. I ended up settling on leaving the sky in. I may revisit this idea though now that you mention it. Or maybe even settle somewhere in between and leave a little less sky.

Thanks for the welcome and the feedback @David_Haynes! Sometimes it’s best to get a second opinion on things like saturation, otherwise I just have to sit on it a couple of days before I’m satisfied enough to print. My eyes tend to get buggy on me. I have an odd work schedule that usually means I do most of my photo processing at night, which doesn’t help. About the smoke, you’re right, there was definitely some lingering smoke in the valley there. The large Creek Fire actually started the day I made this photo. The next morning I woke up to really thick smoke, even way up there in elevation. Luckily I was heading home that day anyway.

Dustin, welcome to NPN, this is an outstanding first post !! The light on the dolomite here is very sweet, and your processing has really brought out the full richness of the colors. You have some wonderful color contrast between the golden foreground and the purple/blue of the distant mountains.

My “rule” for leading lines is that they need to bring the viewer’s eye to something of interest, and you have certainly done that here. There are interesting things at the end of this road, and I like how that golden cliff is emphasized by the darker ridges behind it. In this regard, I agree with @Harley_Goldman that I would crop out the sky for the reasons he stated. For me the lightness of the sky competes with the golden cliff at the end of road. Buy only having darker ridges at the top of the frame, it creates more of a spotlight effect on the golden cliff.

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Thanks a lot @Ed_McGuirk! That’s two votes for a cropped sky then. I will definitely revisit this and try out a couple different crops. The roads in that area were very interesting. I originally went up there to photograph the ancient bristlecones (which I did, of course), but ended up scouting a lot of the roads as they had tons of potential for compositions.

Welcome to NPN Dustin. I agree with the others, great image but the sky just keeps drawing my eyes up and out of the frame. If it were my image I would probably crop out the sky but the keep the details on the top of the mountains in the distance. Love the snake like road ! I think the saturation is just fine. Lots to look at here.

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Thanks @andrew_hertel!

I did a quick crop on my phone to compare. I do think it brings much more attention to the main subjects of the photo by eliminating the sky.

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Yes indeed, the rework is outstanding !!! This is a much tighter and more focused image.

I look forward to seeing more of your work here at NPN…

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Thanks, Ed! I think I’ll be printing this one soon. Looking forward to sharing more on the forum and seeing everyone else’s work here. Lots of great work to be seen here on NPN!

Welcome to NPN, Dustin, and this is a beautiful first post.

Not to be contrarian to the others, but I really like the sky. The first thing that caught my eye was the foreground shadows and how harsh they seemed to be. I really like the harshness of the shadows at the end of the ground, but the FG harshness appeared to be too much. As I mentioned, I enjoy the mountain peaks in the distance, even though they are quite hazy. I downloaded your image and played with it a little - I dodged the road shadows just a little bit, and I increased the contrast somewhat just on the distant peaks to make them more of an element instead of a byproduct. I live in Florida, and when the highest point in Florida is just 345’ above sea level, I want to take advantage of seeing a few mountain peaks when I can!! LOL. But in all seriousness, I believe the color of the sky is a great addition, but I felt it just needed to be a bit more visible.

Images below - original and revised versions
Original

Revision

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Thanks for taking the time to show your changes, @Bill_Chambers ! I see what you mean about the foreground shadows. Just a little bit of dodging seemed to do the trick. As for the haze, there is definitely quite a bit there. It is actually the smoke from the wildfures in the Sierra. I did make a second exposure of this scene with a polarizer, which cut out the smoke a good deal, however since the smoke is a big part of the landscape here right now I felt it was important to leave it in the shot. For the compositionn honestly I change my mind about it each time I look at it :joy:. I liked it a lot with just a little bit of sky showing, but I ended up settling and printing with the sky cropped out as I felt it emphasized the road much better and added a sense of mystery to the background where the mountains were only apparent if you really looked for them. I would be happy with it either way though. I will say this was a tricky image to print required 3 or 4 attempts to get it right.

I grew up in Florida, so I’m very familiar with the flat landscape there. I actually get anxious to leave there as quickly as possible each time I return to visit family. I just need to have some kind of terrain feature all the time to feel comfortable in a place. The flatness drives me nuts!

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