A sunset pic from the end of summer, taken at the Elephant Rock formation near Dillon Beach CA. This is a well known spot but seems to have relatively few decent pics of it online. I'd taken a BW film pic here decades ago when I was in school at SSU and doing my own printing. I'd always wanted to come back.
You have to be careful shooting here because it is very easy to wander onto private property (this is a cattle ranch adjacent to the road and a dirt pull off), and the owners stalk the formation for trespassers. I got yelled at : ( Oh well.
If I'd had more time I would have bracketed and blended the shot to take the bright sky. But after some magic with Luminar 2018 I think I got it to work ok. CC welcome.
Very nice, but I'm not sure it has that 'thing' that makes you want to stay looking. I'm not sure what is the main focus point. The front right rock is a distraction, to my opinion.
Also, if you can get more of the green to show, as it is a bit dull compared to the rest which is rich in color.
Just my 2 cents.
Thanks. The composition I saw was a arc from the foreground rock, looping up to the main rock (Elephant Rock) in the center. I think this would have worked better if I had some separation between the rocks in the dead center of the image.
I think it's probably possible to find a better composition, but I'm not sure because I do not know the location. Yellow is a little too strong for my taste. Lovely sunset shot!
This was right about the time of the Paradise and other fires in CA and the smoke was giving the sunsets that week a lot of color. I've actually de saturated just a bit!
solid shot David... what did the non cropped version look like? nice color i read that you did desaturate i think maybe mask off the sky and desaturate yellows a tad more. also wondering was there any reflected warm light striking the hill leading to the rocks to accentuate the undulation of the ground
This is essentially un cropped, very small cropping at edges. The oranges and reds were so dominant at the time that even with global desaturation they are very strong. I went back to the HSL slider and worked on the individual channels a little in the shot below. I make small adjustments, so not sure it will show up here. When I crop for print at 8x10 I'm able to remove some of the brightest clouds to the R and that that helps too.
i wouldn't worry about it too much more curiosity than anything. i bet it looked spectacular in person too bad we can't take a picture with our eyeballs ....yet lol