I sat in my car, reading a book, waiting for showers to pass. Then, I'd quickly come out, and take image after image as the cloud and light show rolled past. More showers, more waiting. Out again. Took about 120 satisfactory exposures in three and a half hours in one spot, including this one. A great afternoon, and some really good dusk vistas later. One of those days!
Port Latta, Tasmania
It was worth the wait! I have not done much, well really any, landscape work. I was wondering why your images always manage to have a sense that the sky is coming over you. It is so amazing. Is this that result of tilt-shift? Lay some wisdom on me Chris!
Thanks, Ruth! Yes, I love being able to convey some of that sense of vastness, the "big sky". I'm simply pointing a wide-angle lens upward, with the right sky (that looming cloud in this case), and keeping the horizon very low, simply because I like that effect. The ship and pier look sheared to the left if you look closely, because of wide-angle lens effects (convergence). I often use a 28mm lens (here and the Lorne image) as wider lenses give bizarre effects when tilted up so much. That's because these are all NOT tilt-shift lenses, which would minimise this problem. I am contemplating the Nikon 19mm TS, but it's very expensive, heavy, and has an unprotectable bulging front element (it can't take any filters) I'd be worried about out in the field.
See the crop in my reply to Joseph, Ruth. With a tilt-shift lens, things at frame edge can be kept undistorted.
Hold on Chris - did you notice your ship is traveling right to left? This is either an oversight on your part or a blatant transgression of your own ethics!!!!
OK, so perhaps I'm joking (or perhaps not....). I do like the image, but it's hard to compare with your other 'jewel in the crown' .
In this case I do feel it needs to be this way so the cloud leads in from the left. I am liking the story in this - the (large) ship and horizon placed low in the frame emphasizing the power of the sky, but for the sake of balance and clarity of story I think the ship could be a little larger.
I love the way the cloud is almost acting a barrier in the ship's path, and the coloring of the sky but am wondering if a change in crop might offer a different perspective.
I've taken the opportunity to quickly play with the crop and can offer the following for comparison.
As always, great work and I appreciate and respect your eye for a story.
Thanks, Alan! If I could find the right, mirror-image part of the multiverse, of course I'd have both craft both heading to the right, but I seem to be stuck in this one. I can't actually bring myself to reverse any image. It wouldn't be what I saw. I know that The Nut, a distinctive promontory at Stanley is just left of this particular image (and present in many others that day). And so on. Anyway, the large vessel is moored. Ain't goin' nowhere. So there.
I do like your crop. Ideally, it'd be a vertical orientation image in the first place, with a bit more sky at top. However, using the 28mm lens this way, the ship would look oddly tall. As it is, if you look closely, the ship is sheared to the left in my original, owing to convergence.
I wanted the ship small and insignificant below that massive beautiful cloud. I did some with longer (35 and 55mm) lenses as things evolved. Careful, or I'll post the other 119!
nice Chris since there was a lack of color did you look at it in B&W and what lens was this 14mm?
Thanks, Joseph! I love the blues. I'm drawn to colour, so very often monochrome conversions of my own look depressing and dead. It would make a good monochrome, though. You've got a point. Might give it a try. I used a 28 - even a 20, tilted up so much, distorts the edges too much; there is a just-tolerable amount with the 28 (see crop) and very tricky to correct. Thinking of a TS lens because I do this so much.
i was thinking something more like this chris ...you know i love my drama ;)
I've "dramatised" it a fair bit already, Joseph. The effect at the time was majestic, rather than forbidding. I have various edits, and the posted file is the one I used for printing, which comes out a little more like yours once printed. Here's the original, just corrected for underexposure. I usually want to be true to the scene, I now realise, more than a lot of people care about, who are after a final effect; painters like yourself are an obvious example, unless they're photorealists.
Wow that is bright yeah your edit holds true to the scene you know me I just like to play and push things a bit and of coarse no 2 people especially artist will have the same result that’s what I love about the art world ...so much variety
Perfect composition Chris!
Thanks, Radisa! I see a print of this at work many times a day for over three years, and still enjoy the composition, and can't think of a way to improve the "post". Not always the case, by any means!
Wow! What a cloud scape! Not much else to say, I would have loved to see that in person.
Yes, it was a great afternoon!