A photo I took yesterday morning in a -2 Deg C blanket of frost. I arrived an hour before sunrise set up at this spot and waited for magic time to arrive. In post processing I brought a Velvia feel into the image to enhance the tones and colours. Comments welcome.
Very nice comp and colors Mitchell. I have to presume you had scouted this spot out in advance given your vigil waiting for the color show - nice call. My usual luck with something like this is that there will be no cloud cooperation on the day I am ready to shoot but it looks like the skies were just right for this one.
Thanks very much Alan, indeed I've been keeping my eye on this location for some time and just waiting for the perfect frosty morning and luckily the clouds played along this time. Thanks for your comment.
whilst the tones are pleasant enough, two things bother me.
the bank of grass on the left is very bright against the darkness of the rest of the image, this IMO needs turning down a notch or half,
secondly the blend is very obvious with the white mask on the left hand hill edge in the sky, perhaps returning to that mask and painting it in correctly.
Simon, thanks I have toned down that grass bank with a selective mask and updated the image, I am not a big fan of image blending myself and prefer to enhance and reveal details in single exposure images shot with grads. I do agree that piece of sky above the hill is brighter but it's due to the way the grad was positioned and not from a layer mask. That said I did tone it down a little in my updated version of the image above. Thanks for the feedback.
I like the shot a lot. I can see why the near left grass is brighter....it faces the remaining light. My only suggestion would be the slightest 's' in curves, to add a touch of contrast. The light feels a little flat to my eyes.
If you're using Fred's Velvia action, as I often do, it will leave the light a little bright and flat. I always bring back some contrast with curves after.
