Image is from Arches, 70-210 zoom set somewhere below, but close to 200, velvia.

-- Dennis Smith (djs4394@geocities.com), December 23, 1998

Answers

http://www.geocities.com/soho/gallery/4394/img0067.jpg

-- DennisSmith (djs4394@geocities.com), December 23, 1998.

-- Dennis Smith (dennis.j.smith@geocities.com), December 23, 1998.

I think it looks like a lizard myself, but Lizard Rock is already taken (and about 120km south).

There is too much sky, even for this sky aficionado. I'd have tucked the "head" further into the upper right corner. I also would have waited for (or returned when) the Sun to swing around about 180 degrees. But there may well be a wall on the right that wasn't imaged ...

-- Matthew Francey (mdf@my-dejanews.com), December 23, 1998.

Exposure: Could be a scanning issue but the rocks seem underexposed... If anything images here are usually too light on my screen , so it's not a gamma issue. Anyhow, a central point of interest is the tonal variation & texture in the rock and that is difficult to see. Also the sky is for me too saturated. could be Velvia, could be a polarizer? Again, a half or two thirds of a stop more would help this. More exposure would also add punch to the sunlit edges, the photo's only highlights.

Composition: Overall this composition feels extremely static, with the blob of rock near-center and that huge expanse of featureless sky above it. This deemphasizes the foreground without eliminating it, and does not provide a sense of scale to emphasize a vast sky.

I think this image might have been more successful if you'd (a) moved in closer; (b) used a shorter focal length; (c) included more foreground. I do *not* think that cropping will substantially improve this picture, but then I usually don't think that ;-).

Thanks for sharing!

-- Alexey Merz (alexey@webcom.com), December 27, 1998.