Any interest in a simple Photo thread?

[3dogs]

For the record I like the image, but seeing as you asked

The blue channel is severely clipped in the rock. If your original file is a raw exposure you may be able to rework it to give more detail in the darker blue channel in the rock area. Clipped data is gone forever.

Foreground - Only my opinion! The red earth in the foreground detracts the eye from the significance of the startling red in the rock. My suggestions either dull it down or crop about 10% to 15% off the bottom. Will help the startling red of the rock dominate even more and in my opinion enhance the appeal of the image.

For the record I have NO artistic pretensions, being more a technocrat rather than an artist. (ie more left brain than right brain), so take the above with a grain of salt, or a little malt


RS

The foreground is indeed THE battleground over which WARS are fought at Club level, the arena in which Named " Professionals" claim the moral high ground on the basis of Artistic licence and so on and on....

You are right in technical terms a distraction so close to the bottom edge does indeed arrest and delay the journey into the subject matter/ point of focus.......the Artists who have viewed this image are a bit far from classic to come down hard anywhere, but in general will venture that it does add context to the whole, and are equally as devided as are the Club viewers...some yes some no.

With respect to the blue channel I will investigate further, as I do have the raw file still.

Thanks

1/200 th Sec. @ f8.0.ISO640, 47mm( EF 24-105mm f4 L) taken at 6:49 with the sun hitting the horizon...just.

 

[fotofreek]

Since the more "painterly" presentation of this image involves considerable post-processing (which I find a fine artistic addition to an already excellent shot) I'd have considered taking out the small items (shrubs?) on the right that break an otherwise perfect horizon. Does this expose my tendency toward OCD? I have a strong appreciation for symmetry when appropriate. This image has beautiful left/right symmetry of the sky/land junction and I find these small projections into the skyline a bit distracting. The highlighted brush in the foreground works to add depth and also tends to draw the eye into the center of the picture.

 

[3dogs]

Since the more "painterly" presentation of this image involves considerable post-processing (which I find a fine artistic addition to an already excellent shot) I'd have considered taking out the small items (shrubs?) on the right that break an otherwise perfect horizon. Does this expose my tendency toward OCD? I have a strong appreciation for symmetry when appropriate. This image has beautiful left/right symmetry of the sky/land junction and I find these small projections into the skyline a bit distracting. The highlighted brush in the foreground works to add depth and also tends to draw the eye into the center of the picture.

Cleaner?

 

[The Hat]

No...

 

[Emulator]

Andrew, I think there are so many options, as you can begin to see from the responses, that there is no ideal solution. My comment was more related to the lack of canvas texture below the horizon.

Why not post up the nearest Jpeg image you have to the RAW file (i.e. unprocessed) and invite members to submit their attempts at a finished image?

 

[3dogs]

Andrew, I think there are so many options, as you can begin to see from the responses, that there is no ideal solution. My comment was more related to the lack of canvas texture below the horizon.

Why not post up the nearest Jpeg image you have to the RAW file (i.e. unprocessed) and invite members to submit their attempts at a finished image?

Metaphor is why. The rock is as old as time itself changed only by the sky, a canvas changing all day every day. The foreground like the rock unchanging through lifetimes sacred like the rock. Spread through the expanse you look at are mounds or crevices with a nondescript stone.......turn it over, or mark where it points and it carries an eternal aboriginal marker telling a part if a ritual or pointing to a site....not part of a canvas. That role in my depiction of this place of the sky is as the canvas upon which the story is recorded.
The placement and absence of things are significant parts of my telling of a dreamtime place that as @The Hat has intemated, takes a person open to journeys back into the time of the dreaming (creation) it can fill a persons being with what but a flash our existance is on times interminable trip through evolution.
To me taking out the trees to clean the image was to sully something that has a place in this world for me, and is a graphic demonstration of how we emasculate everything we touch. The Aboriginal ignorant and primitive as they are seen by us defy gravity and progress to move and exist alongside an unchanged landscape in perfect harmony and mutual respect.

 

[Emulator]

You should get a genuine Aboriginal view of your image and determine exactly what is important to them. Or perhaps you have?

 

[Emulator]

This is the sort of image I would go for, no doubt others would differ.

 

[The Hat]

This magnificent rock has to be seen to be truly believed in, it’s best described as breathe taking and leaves the recipient humbled in its very presents, because it keeps changing before your very eyes.

To the Aboriginals it’s what we’d call their “holy place” and even the name “Aboriginal” suggests timelessness (The dream time).

It’s definitely one for the bucket list..

 

[fotofreek]

As a testament to time and place I agree that the original image is extremetly important. As an artistic expression that includes post processing there is a matter of individual taste. To me the trees to the right of the rock are a very minor distraction, and their removal enhances full attention to the beauty of the subtleties and shading of the rocky outcropping as well as its inherent and amazing symmetry. I'm sure, however, that if this were the view from my window, I'd appreciate every feature as it exists. It is even possible that I would reject, out of hand, any suggestion to alter the printed image.

@3dogs' question, "Cleaner?" and @The Hat's response, "no" brings to my mind a broader aspect of this discussion. We live in a world of imperfect personal relationships, governments, human responses to problems, and other issues too numerous to mention. In essence, we live in a world that is, by its nature, "messy".

Nature has presented us with this amazing rock formation that takes on the varied hues of the changing hour of the day. It exhibits the changes in its shape and surface form that are subject to eons of changes in weather. The human proclivity to ascribe to such a gift of nature emotional content is a very important feature of our psyche.

The question, then, is the following: Is any alteration of the printed image a reasonable effort at artistic expression, or is it an effort to make what has been presented to us by nature conform to our preconceived notion of symmetry and perfection? My answer, for me, is to appreciate both what I see as an amazing feature of our natural surroundings with the emotions it can elicit, and a presentation of an image that one can see as an artistic creation with the beauty of nature as its subject.