Simpler explanation: I've been very busy. Tweaking an image to show what I mean is quick and easy. Reading, considering, pondering, composing, re-editing, being dissatisfied and doing it again, then posing the analysis - THAT's hard and time consuming for me. Finding a long enough block of time when I'm working on taxes, setting up two companies, billing work, as well as cooking, keeping up the house and caring for the rabbits, cat and my dearly beloved.... Sometime I don't have enough free brain time or energy to do all I'd ideally do. And sometime I actually feel guilty for blathering too much and shut-up and allow others participate more.
This is Hayden Peak, up the road about 5 miles from Mirror Lake and facing east. The pond is just a pond with an inlet stream and no outlet. I have a print of it from last fall. It was soft so I wanted to redo it, but the light was not there this time.
My problem with the composition is the essential visual division into fairly equal top and bottom halve visual weights, making the composition somewhat static. The bluff mirrored in the lake adds to the static effect. It would be a better compo, I'd expect, if there was more sky to move the horizontal visual axis of the image a fair amount lower in the image, or added more foreground to raise it. Of the two, including more foreground in the original would probably have been the best choice because it has more gravitas.
Hi, I see where you are going, and this scene has only a few possibilities. I am not a fan of a square crop, and in fact tend to go to 16/9 for this sort of scene which I could do as well but at the cost of sky which is where I usually sacrifice.
But the 14mm version at the very start of this post has more latitude to get off center and retain some sky. I could stand further back and include more grass and then crop to get more off center.
I am basically looking for how to shoot this scene, a place I can return to.
Took a stab at it. (original from pg 1 for reference)
BTW, I think the comparison of last year's version with this year's strongly illustrates how incredibly varied nature can APPEAR to us ... yet the color of the mountain rock is the same today as it was a decade or a century ago. When you shine a giant red flashlight on it, it reflects more red. Light it with a soft blue/gray sky and it doesn't reflect intense reds.
Not exactly rocket science, but that is the basis for my "plausible realism" perspective. On any given day, at any given time the lighting that is naturally provided can range from mild to wild, to plain old dull, flat and boring. The subject's light reflecting properties hasn't changed ... but the lighting has and thus a different rendering is delivered with the human perception seeing it one way, and the camera recording it yet another.
Between the three pieces of the puzzle (variable lighting, human perception, camera recording DR limits) having a degree of variance and natural diversity, they provide for a degree of latitude in rendering that doesn't end with what comes out of the camera. Rather, it can be just the beginning ... as long as it remains believable that it "could have" been that way "if" I had been there at some point in time.
"How I saw an image" ... can become "How I want to show others" what I saw vs. what it was like for you to be there. Are they the same ... not necessarily, but if the concept was good enough for AA ...
I like it Rusty. If I ever get back there, I will try the 14 again further back for more cropping options.
While I was there, I thought the 14 made the mountain too small and that is why I went to 17. This is a real mountain 12,478 elevation.
I like your take on plausible realism. I guess I would like to get a repeat of last years clouds with better focus and composition however. The challenge of being there when the light is doing something is part of why I do this.
I took my grand daughter for a walk three nights ago. There was a magnificent sunset in the west, and a giant rainbow in the east and a rising nearly full moon ducking in and out of the clouds. I had no camera, and the urban scene would not have made a picture anyway, but it was fantastic to experience. I made sure she saw it and once I did, she was as captivated as me.
My take on AA is that he first did the best possible job when he clicked the shutter, and then maximized what he had in the darkroom. So far as I know, he did not make composites, but did maximize dynamic range.
I don't think he required much cropping since he had the ultimate zoom system with bellows and rise and falls.
One thing I did note with last years pictures, that light angle of direct sun kills contrast. A bit of sidelight helps.
My 3 cents.
I liked Bens 2nd image,it brought attention to the Mtn by using
the reflection on the water. For me that was the foacl point my eye was attracted to .
Auntiepode first atempt was my favorite, if she would of used the image with no reflection in the water, as her's brought attention to the Mtn. Thats where my eye was drawn.
