Hi everyone,
I have a couple of things that I'm not sure about with this image.
1) Does the image look level to you? I used the electronic level in camera, so it technically is level, but it appears a bit off to me. Is it just me?
2) Is the compostion too left-heavy? I did my best to place the lake on the right third and brought up the exposure on the big boulder on the right, but most of the interst still seems to be on the left. I've considered cropping in from the right just a bit. Any thoughts?
Any other comments or critique is of course welcome. Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to give me feedback!
I have an issue of deciding when to use very near foreground elements or not in my landscapes. I have concluded that it depends on what your focus is, and what could be detracted from the focus. In this instance, it seems to me the long leading line of the water. In this case the rocks on the right are a distraction. I don't think you can crop it out as the composition will then look off balance. It is more of a shooting situation. I wonder if you could have taken half a step left to eliminate the rock, or move forward to do the same. (Sometimes you just can't.) The light on the hills is superb well done. As to your first question, is looks straight to me, sometimes the hills can give the impression that your shot is a bit off.
Hi Loretta, thank you very much for your input! I had also considered simplifying the frame by removing the foreground (it's actually quite easy to do in that location), but I decided to add the boulder on the right to frame the lake and 'close the image of' to the right of sorts. The landscape opens up to the right quite a bit, and I felt the viewer's eye might get drawn out. But if the boulder is a distraction to the rest of the image that might have been the wrong decision. Thanks again for your ideas.
Here is my humble opinion!!
The image appears to be slightly tilted to the right. The reason I think this happens has to do with the perspective relative to the course of the river.The right side weighs a lot in the image and I think this has to do with the fact that it is very dark. Maybe lightening is more solution than cropping.
Nevertheless is a stunning image. Congrats!
Hi Vitor, thanks for you comment! I didn't even think about the course of the river in that regard, I just see the visual tilt of the mountain ridge. Thanks again for your suggestion, I'll try bringing up the foreground/right side a bit more.
nice vantage point over the scene i wish you would have been blessed with a beautiful cloud system with that sunlight beaming through but still an amazing location. well captured nice reflection. you could possibly layer this in PS and then warm up the foreground a bit and that may help from the heaviness of the right side as mentioned in previous comments. i would probably bump up the saturation and darken mid tones to make it pop but this is a beautiful scene.
Hi Joseph, I apprecaite your comment. You're right, the sky is abit dull unfortunately, although I was honestly just really excited to have caught a clear sky. That alone can be quite a rarity in scottish autumn :) I'll defenitlely consider warming up the foreground as you suggested, great idea. Thanks for taking the time!
no problem awesome image i really need to get over there and take in that view
Hi,
the horizon is a little flat, those mountains in the background are merging into a single unidentifyable mass. The boulder in the foreground on the right is also quite opressing, and you don't have the best sky in the world. I'd like to see another vantage point, and a more telephoto shot. Don't try to put everything in the frame. It's also ok to have telephoto shots without a foreground. Don't think that all of your shots need foreground/midground/background. For example the peak on the far left is alright, if you had a compass, you could calculate at what day of the year the moon or sun would rise or set right next to it, and come back that day. Anyway, I'm a hiker and I've seen a lot in the Alps, and a lot of vistas simply don't translate well into photos, or I wasn't good enough to render it.
Ah good old Loch Coruisk! Nice to see a classic Scottish scene! Kudos to the man who gets to Sgurr na Stri in winter.
1) I'm sure that it is level. The Cuillins just aren't ;)
2) As spectacular as this view is when seen in person, I've always found it surprisingly tricky to make a really satisfying image there. Just something about the angle of the hills and the loch that can make all that space feel kind of...flat. And the emptiness of Loch Scavaig does create a visual blank space. It fights for attention. I've always found it works best when you can use it as a backdrop for something interesting but leave the eye free roam over Coruisk.
I think there are better compositions elsewhere on the hill, even on the way back down where you can create really nice layers with the hills.
Awesome work though, and I'm sure a fantastic memory :)
Thanks David, I much appreciate your comment. You're right, it is technically level, I'm just not sure if it's visually level as well. The image certainly doesn't quite convey the scale of the ridge very well, so I agree about the flattness issue. I actually used the alternative route from Camasunary, so I'm not sure I've been further down where you're suggesting to go. Anyway, thanks again.
In order to balance this images an alternative light source or filter should have been used. The filter (polarized) would have evenly distributed the range of colors in the sky and heightened the foreground colors. Also, you're attempt at the "magic Hour" was a bit off I would have waited just a bit longer. Using the polarized filter in brighter sunlight would or could have resulted in a better and more colorful competition.
Hi Amp, thanks for the comment. I did use a polarizer for the first few frames, but it wasn't really working for a few reasons. The shot is too wide, pretty much 180° from the sun, and the water turned too dark. It helped slightly when turned just a bit, but as the sun hit and it warmed up the filter fogged up and I had to take it off. This is a sunrise btw, and I was there plenty early, but earlier shots with the light confined to the very peaks made the shadow areas overwhelming. Could you explain what you mean by using an alternative light source? Like lightpainting or what did you mean by that? Anyway, thanks for your ideas!
Good to hear Lukas. yes light painting or even a portable light box with a soft filter. I see Art Wolfe use this technique all the time. I mean I realize that one may not wish to carry a load of equipment to a location like this, But setting the camera on a timed exposer with a hand held light source, then spot light the foreground. Also, the polarized filter does rotate, I'm sure you're aware of this. In other words.. how many shots at this location did you manage to get?. I would have taken more at various stages or rotations of the polarized filter. If you polarized lens doesn't rotate, you may need to locate one that does. But again, some people including myself will find it hard not to use a polarization filter in a shot like yours.
Lastly, Have you ever considered overlapping multiple shots of the same image?.. as this would accentuate many of the quality needed accentuated.
Yeah I'm aware the polarizer can be rotated. Still, when the sun is directly behind, you don't get much of an effect from it. This is shot at 19mm, so the polarization would have also been very uneven across the sky, no matter which way it was turned. I'm sure you've experienced this, with one side of the sky coming out much darker than the other - not exactly ideal.
I actually tried using my headlamp to illuminate the boulder a bit, but it wasn't nearly powerful enough. That's a good idea though, I've connsidered buying a decent flashlight for these kind of things a while ago but never got to it.
I got quite a few frames with the tripod locked down. This is an exposure blend of three shots, with a decent amount of dodging and burning already done. I'll put a reference image of where this started below, that probably would have given better context from the start.
I've had a chance to examine the image over night, I think it would have been best that a polarized filter not been used in this instance as the images has too much haze and if the Polarized filter was used, thus creating a darker than normal photo. The over all balance and compensation of the image is spot on, but perhaps scale back one or two fstops and take several images within a 10-30 min time frame as the sun highlights the surrounding mountains. Also, With the fstop scaled back, one could see more light on the foreground thus one would have to rethink what angle of approach that is best suit this shot.