White Rock

This canyon scene from southern Utah provided some interesting depth and multiple layers.

D850, 70-200mm

1 Like

Great image Harley! Indeed, the various layers, colors and objects create a great composition. I couldn’t resist playing with it: I darkened the rock in the LRC just a tad, put a brightness spotlight over the area of the tree, and cropped just a bit off the left and top.

Harley, the white rock and lone tree make this view special as they illustrate the huge walls of surrounding rock. I could see this cropped to a square on the right, but that loses much of the good looking streaks in the wall on the left…

Harley, love this one here. This is one of those wonderful scenes that you can play around with some variations also.
I like the burned down white rock example here.
The bolder at the base of the lighter wall draws my eye for some reason. I tried a significant crop in from the left to eliminate the bolder at the base of the lighter wall. It makes the image into a vertical but really works for me. Anyway, just playing around as the tree and the white bolder are outstanding MAIN subjects and the other thoughts are totally optional ideas… :sunglasses:

This is excellent, Harley. These sandstone walls are exquisite and the variations in color provides beautiful contrasts. I see the light boulder and tree as the primary focal points as such I could see cropping off the left to more of a square aspect ratio. I think this provides better balance. Otherwise processing looks good to me.

Wonderful image, Harley. The textures in the rock and color contrast works beautifully. You are fortunate to have Southern Utah as a photography playground. My eye went to the tree first as the main element in the image; afterward I zeroed in on the white rock. The white rock moves the eye into the tree. Marvelous job of seeing here.

For some reason I really like the blue in the rock wall. This is indeed a really good photo. As others have implied, the image is right centric due to the bright rock and a crop off the left and even the top would help.

For me, the tree is a great element, showing the scale and majesty of the canyon walls. The white rock is also a great element, but I could see it more as the central element of a different composition; for me, it tends to draw the eye. I, too, like the multiple layers and the various colors and patterns in the rock.

Excellent image Harley. I agree with Igor, I love those blue colors in the desert varnish, they add so much mood to the scene. While you are getting a lot of comments that the image is very right-centric, I’m not sure I would want to see any crop away of the left side. I think the visual power of the tree and bright rock really derive from their small scale in the vastness of these canyon walls. I think a crop away of the left side would diminish some of that sense of vastness. I think this works great as presented, and wouldn’t change anything other than Tony’s reduction in luminosity of the bright rock in the LRC.

This is an interesting comp and a great scene Harley.

While others have commented about the value of a crop to the left to me it only makes a subtle difference as my eye is drawn strongly to the white rock in any case. The bright rock on a dark background and the wonder of how did that rock get there make it a compelling subject for me.