Original image: Canon EOS with 100-300L on Kodachrome 25.

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), March 31, 1999

Answers

Frank, I thought you didn't like large images here ?

-- Jan van Bodegraven (janvnbdg@mandic.com.br), March 31, 1999.

Good try...I can see what you were going for, with the tree and the rocks standing out in the light. Good eye to try that, but you just didn't pull it off here.

First, I think you missed the exposure. And compositionally, I think that either including a little bit more of the sunlit rocks across the top, or none at all would be more effective.

-- Jason Fobart (jason@fobart.net), March 31, 1999.

Jan,

I am as surprised as you at the size that this image appears here. I've been fooling around with file comression in JPEG and must have missed the image size in pixels. Sorry, if that caused you any inconvenience.

Jason,

Exposure looks perfect to me, nothing is burned out and nothing of significance is dead black, what do you see that I don't?

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), March 31, 1999.

I agree that the top should be cropped, the sunlit rocks at the top do not belong in the image. It looks much nicer without them. I do think you hit the exposure though, nice detail in the light and dark areas. If you could crop the right also and lose that very small tree or stick, it keeps attracting my eye.

-- Rob Pailes (rpailes@peganet.com), March 31, 1999.

Frank,I have to agree that the image is stronger without the top third, and cropping in a bit on the right leaves an interesting emphasis on two elements relating to each other: the sunlit tree and the diagonal of the rock face on the right. Exposure looks ok on my monitor.

-- Mike Green (mgprod@mindspring.com), April 01, 1999.

I don't see any detail, like Jason, in the black "bush-blobs." Also, the two rock masses in the background blend together in the shadows. As for size, why not resize and post a smaller image with the smae filename on your server? It would make this much easier to critique. In my humble opinion, this is not your best work to date. The terrain is potentially very interesting, but there's just no place for my eye to rest. Don't be discouraged by comments, by the way. I guarantee you that Ansel Adams could post something here and someone would point out things that they don't like. Maybe that's why we see so little from Bob Atkins? Anyway, best of luck in the future.

-- Joe Cheatwood (cheatwoo@ufl.edu), April 01, 1999.

Frank: I think the image is nice and has potential: I would increase the contrast and decrease brightness - the lowlight (shadow) details offer me nothing and are not significant) 2) I agree with Mike on cropping. get rid of the top sunlit part right above the sunlit rock on RHS, they take away from the impact of the image. 3) I would rotate the image 1 degree CCW to make the tree parallel to the LHS edge of the frame 4) I would crop the LHS just beside the leftmost sunlit green I modified the image and e-mailed it to you (for what it is worth!) This is my strange way of looking and capturing the same subject. Thanks for sharing Bahman

-- Bahman Farzad (bahman_farzad@spotmetering.com), April 02, 1999.

My first reaction is a top crop. This one has highlights spilling out of the frame similar to "Sespe Creek Gorge". There is also that annoying scratchy looking line on the right. The tree lighting and contrast to the shadowed rocks is nice.

-- Larry Korhnak (lvk@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu), April 02, 1999.

Well, I guess I'm the only one who likes the bright area at the top! I find the top-cropped image to be overly stylized, perhaps, and not in accord with the feeling of the area I'm after.

I'm curious about why this image causes a problem with a bright area at the top when many or most open landscape images have bright clouds at the top and they seem to be acceptable - why not here?

The only thing I would change in a print is to subdue the brightness of the yucca stem on the right that gets your eye. BTW, this is a full frame image only minimally cropped by the slide mount. I rarely do any additonal cropping after the camerawork is done, especially in 35mm where there is little so film area to waste.

Thanks for your input.

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), April 02, 1999.

The reason that the bright area on top is causing a problem in this particular image is that most of this image is in the shadows. Hence the small amount of bright areas catch the attention of the eye/mind. Since the main subject(s) seems to be the tree and the rocks on the right, the bright rocks on top draw attention away from the main subject.

The bright/dark contrast is nice, but I think too much of this image is in the shades. I too would crop the top off and focus on the tree and the rocks on the right. If it is possible, I would shoot a bit earlier (if this is in the afternoon, or later if this is in the morning) so that there is more bright area in the image.

-- Shun Cheung (shun@worldnet.att.net), April 02, 1999.