Subzeroooohhhh

[Carol]

Hiking the Frankenstein Cliffs, across a (seasonal) railroad right-of-way. The haziness in the pictures is not from fog or atmospheric haze, it is from wind gusts blowing powdery snow. My windchill alarm got a pretty good workout.

As always, feedback appreciated.

 

[Sukerkin]

The top shot is wonderful, Carol - I love that sense of there being something about to appear at the horizon it gives.

For me, the middle two shots are actually spoiled a little by the blown snow 'haze'. Perhaps a bit of post processing to bring out the snow particles more and make them a feature of the pictures?

The bottom one brought out my engineers nature as I was thinking that someone needs to maintain those railings before they rust too much :lol:. The composition of the picture tho' is great, with the rails leading your eye to the mountains.

 

[Carol]

Awesome feedback Mark, thank you

I was not too happy with how the middle two shots came out either, but wasn't entirely sure which direction to go. I was focusing more on color correction when I processed them, and it sounds like that is not the way to go given the snow haze.

What do you think? First photo is the camera's raw file, 2nd photo applies a bit of an S curve which is essentially tweaking the lights and darks while leaving the colors and white balancing intact.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Try a polarizing filter to deal with the haze.
But, I love the shots. Nicely done.

 

[Sukerkin]

I pondered suggesting a polariser but an alternative is to actually add granularity and make it a feature of the picture.

 

[Carol]

I used a polarizing filter on the lens when I shot the image, but not in software.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Ahh.

1 suggestion if I may. In the last 3 shots, the horizon line looks to be near center to my eye. Move it up a hair and I think you end up with stronger shots. For example, post #3 that shot? crop right under the 2nd tree branch (about 1" down) and see what you think.

 

[Carol]

Ahh.

1 suggestion if I may. In the last 3 shots, the horizon line looks to be near center to my eye. Move it up a hair and I think you end up with stronger shots. For example, post #3 that shot? crop right under the 2nd tree branch (about 1" down) and see what you think.

Great suggestions! Do these work better?

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Better. Could I tweak one and show you what's in my head?

 

[Carol]

Better. Could I tweak one and show you what's in my head?

Please do!

 

[jks9199]

Looking at the top of the revised ones... I'd suggest dropping it even further at the top, down to the bottom of the cloud in the top right or so. Just playing by shifting it up on my browser window, that looked good. In fact, if you go back to the raw pic, and only crop from the top, not in from the sides, I think it'll look really good. Even if it's not the 3x5 or whatever the heck proportions...

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Using the rule of thirds and the golden mean you can get ideas on how to compose shots. Like the Codex Pirate, I use them more as guidelines than hard rules, and rarely hit them spot on.

1st shot is yours with both rules overlaid.
2nd is my crop, with the rules overlaid
3rd is my crop, no lines.

With the first shot, you've got a pretty equal break of land to sky. This causes the viewer to be confused over which is the focus. A narrower crop (which breaks the 4x6 shape) gives more of a focus on the landscape with the sky as an accent. Leading lines from the trees at the bottom draw your focus in to the scene.

Make sense?

 

[Carol]

Makes total sense! Break that aspect ratio

 

[MA-Caver]

As a former pro photog myself one of the most valuable lessons I learned, and that Bob just taught you was never center your subject. Even in landscapes either have a lot of sky (if it looks good) or a 1/3rd of sky if the foreground looks good. Same with portraits and such. When I was shooting people at work with their cameras I almost always got down on one knee and shot up and cut them off at the waist and had the camera turned vertical. This way the waterfall would be in the shot and provide a more dramatic effect for their shot.
Sometimes this got me tips sometimes not.

Doesn't matter anymore anyway... don't work there anymore. Ah c'est la vie.

 

[MJS]

Very nice Carol!

 

[Carol]

As a former pro photog myself one of the most valuable lessons I learned, and that Bob just taught you was never center your subject. Even in landscapes either have a lot of sky (if it looks good) or a 1/3rd of sky if the foreground looks good. Same with portraits and such. When I was shooting people at work with their cameras I almost always got down on one knee and shot up and cut them off at the waist and had the camera turned vertical. This way the waterfall would be in the shot and provide a more dramatic effect for their shot.
Sometimes this got me tips sometimes not.

Doesn't matter anymore anyway... don't work there anymore. Ah c'est la vie.

The challenge with shooting from the cliffs is to maximize the view of the other mountains, while minimizing the ground in front of me, which is just a splotch of white. Boring