After looking at Timothy Farrar's shot of the entrance to Monument Valley, I was inspried to revisit some images from my last trip there. I have a bunch shot from a slightly below grade spot north of the" juniper" where I had to get lower to avoid casting a shadow as long as West Mitten. I find a lot of blah space in the foreground. I do like the single illuminated bush, but the rest of the area is pretty weak. I'd be grateful for some cropping suggestions. Feel free to chop it up if you want. Or simply a few comments. thanks.
I'm not sure you need to crop any, Tim. I like the scrub as fg interest, and it gives the scene a nice depth, and a feeling of wide open spaces, that might be lost if you took it out.
Love the warm side light and those looonnng shadows!
I don't think you can crop out that foreground - well you can if you want!! - so follow the philosophy " if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" and emphasise the foreground by cropping of a bit of sky or
b). something more radical, like cropping out Merrick's Butte altogether as well, just leaving the mittens - something like this - but to your taste, of course.
Edited by MartinMcl on Jan 16, 2008 at 12:09 PM GMT
I like it as is - the foreground adds details of the character of the place I would have been tempted to clone out the 'half' bushes right and left and the piece in the lower left corner?
Hey Tim. I don't know, I'm torn on this one. While it looks fine as is, I'd have to say I would prefer a crop just above the bushes to give it more of a pano look. It seems to work better like that to me anyway. Here's what I'm referring to, it's a 1:2 ratio crop to keep it simple. Hope you don't mind the repost. Also, you may want to clone out that contrail, just a thought.
Other than that, nice shot. You got some great light on these guys, and I love the nice long shadows. Gotta get there myself some day.
You know that cropping is a matter of taste and we all have different vision. I honestly think this is a great capture and like it is, it looks great to me.
For the sake of cropping I could crop some from the sky, from the left, from the right and slightly, I mean slightly, from the foreground.
Like it is, to repeat, it looks like a great shot to me.
William Rodriguez
Miami, Florida.
Thanks everyone. I do appreciate the advice and the crops. I'm a bit partial to Todd's crop as a nice focus. The best thing is for me to go back and shoot the place some more. Like that would be punishment or something
Jan 20, 2008 at 10:33 PM
David Leask Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
It's a great shot to start with Tim and, like Todd, I'm not sure about crops. I do prefer the pano crop but the balance in Martins crop is appealing too
Sorry, I'm not much help here
David
My crop suggestion would be to do a 2:1 with the two middle thumbs in the center of the shot (and the right most butte out), gathering a little of the shadow on the bottom (without any of the super foreground), and some of the blue sky on the top.
