-- Mike Sisk (mike@watch4rocks.com), August 26, 1998

Answers

Looks like a vacation snap shot - it's too foggy for my taste and the color balance is weird (too much magenta).

-- (andreas@physio.unr.edu), August 27, 1998.

I disagree, I think it's a neat shot that just needs a little bit of Photoshop color work to get rid of that magenta color cast. I dunno, I'm just a big fan of that compressed telephoto effect. I fact, I think that using an even longer focal length would have made this image even better. I wish that the picture wasn't so hazy - I don't know if a UV filter would have helped. I also like how you've divided the picture elements into thirds.

-- Ming Kuo (mkuo@nmsu.edu), August 27, 1998.

I think it is a good picture. You have captured the depth of the landscape, and the mood. The composition (or cropping) is excellent. I like it.

-- Jana Mullerova (jam@terma.com), August 27, 1998.

Is that fog or smog? It just lessens the picture without being a pictorial element. Sometimes atmospheric haze pictures can work better if there is a foreground element of interest. Was this photo taken from Hwy 62 or the Salton View overlook? I do like the colors though. In drab Los Angeles I like to use Velvia to counteract the smog effect and punch up the colors outdoors.

-- Warren Kato (wkato@aol.com), August 27, 1998.

Tonal contrast is a little too flat, magenta cast may be a media handling defect (was this film left in a hot car?) but is not annoying and possibly has an appealing effect. Photo a number of qualities to recommend it but lacks a feeling of completeness a graphically strong or compelling foreground element could have provided. Also, current landscape photography convention would tend to recommend more dramatic lighting for this type of subject, i.e. "Golden Light". Here is an example of this approach.

-- Lester LaForce (102140.1200@compuserve.com), August 27, 1998.

Crop off the bottom a little. IMO the bottom "triangle" is distracting. The magenta cast is problem as already noted. The photo does have a sense of deph, although I'd agree that a longer lens would help. The hazy IMO doesn't help the photo.

-- Paul Lenson (lenson@pci.on.ca), August 27, 1998.

I am emailing you a contrast corrected version, just did a bit of sharpening and some slight increase in contrast, it may be appearing on other peoples monitors differently, see if you like this version.

Al

-- Altaf Shaikh (nissar@idt.net), August 28, 1998.

A few details:

Taken at Keys View in Joshua Tree National Park looking northwest over the Coachella Valley toward Mt. San Jacinto. Taken in late afternoon during the week. The haze is smog blown down the Coachella Valley from the L.A. basin. The late afternoon sunlight refracted through the thick smog gave the scene a magenta cast.

Tech info: Hasselblad 501CM, 180mm lens, polarizer and 81D. Tripod mounted and held down with sand bags in a very stiff wind. Velvia film scanned on a drum scanner to a 31 MB Tiff file. I further processed the file with PhotoShop 5 or a color-calibrated Power Mac. I took several other photos as the same time including some with a Hasselblad SWC and the required foreground elements. None captured the mood as well as this one, IMHO.

Actually on my Mac I like the look of the picture; the magenta cast isn't as strong as it is on the PC.

It's certainly not one of my better photos but I like it nonetheless. The line of diagonal hills in the middle of the picture is the trace of the San Andreas fault.

Several files processed by a Photo.net member are found here and here. I think these are overly sharpened and too contrasty.

An original unprocessed jpeg can be found here and a 800x800 PC tiff can be found here.

Phil has a similar picture.

-- Mike Sisk (mike@watch4rocks.com), August 28, 1998.

the link to phil's picture help me put into words why i'd only give mike's picture a 6 or 7 out of 10. here's what i like about phil's picture better.

- in phil's shot, there are some large(ish) greed shrubs in the foreground that are sort of like "subjects"

- in phil's shot, there are lines sloping to both the right AND left, as opposed to the one way slanting in mike's shot.

- in phil's shot, the "first level" of haze fills half the frame (as opposed to only 1/4 in mike's shot) and there seem to be more "levels" of hase.

- in phil's shot, the color levels seem more balanced (without being too contrasty like the processed versions of mike's shot) and the sky color stands out from the mountains more.

i'm not saying i don't like mike's shot. it's just that i like phil's better.

-- Sean Hester (seanh@ncfweb.net), August 28, 1998.

An exceptional rendition of an otherwise dull landscape. I like it.

-- Tom Williams (image.araya@mailcity.com), September 06, 1998.