This is more of a test and opinion regarding this image. I have been trying to get to this locale when there may be a promise of a red(dish) sunset. It's a 1.5 hour drive... a 1.25 mile hike gaining 1600 feet of elevation that takes about a half hour.... 2 trips and the promise of red skies have eluded me. I took these shots anyway.... but there is a lower viewpoint that I may try....
This is Terrible Tilly, the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse that is decommissioned now. It lies 1.2 miles out to sea, tried to process this shot, doubt it will go anywhere... I would rather try to get the sunset colors... but out of curiosity, what are the thoughts of the group.....?
Lee,
It is a serene scene. The blue tones gently offset by the lighter more orangey bands is soothing but a different mood than your goal. I can imagine a series in different light with different appealing color palates.
I agree that a bit lower would be better. But nature may not cooperate.
I like the placement in the frame and the darker band near the top.
Did you shoot with a tripod? Are you zoomed all the way in? What EXIF?
Image appears soft to me.
Vantage point I think does a nice job of allowing a good view of the lighthouse, and offers a relationship to the expanse of the ocean. Depending on how much lower of a viewpoint you are talking about, you may lose some of that relationship.
The two things that stand out for me are the color ... it looks to be a very unnatural cyan. Your dark band across the top has areas with "0" red in it (crushed in pp ). Of course, for artistic intent, anything goes. Nature provides a tremendous amount of latitude in lighting conditions, but this hue just looks not right to these old sailor eyes.
The other thing is the band itself. It provides a strong "STOP" and look, left and right, before proceeding upward. I realize that the horizon is, well, horizontal, but the amount of contrast here encourages us to adhere to it a bit more strongly, imo, which is somewhat counter to the serenity vibe. I might consider softening that line, either via blur or tonal value, or a combination.
For me, this is similar to Scott's desired "expanse" ... the unknown abyss of the sea lies beyond the known (lighthouse) and having a strong finite known, "stop here" horizon intimates opposite that message. I'd consider cropping the hard line, leaving us into the dark abyss, but it might become an awkward crop ratio then, so softening may be the way to go.
Mono may be calling its name here, as well as artistic rendering ... lots of ways to go with this nice one, but the hue & strong band seem to be holding it back a bit for me. (sooc?)
sbeme wrote:
Lee,
It is a serene scene. The blue tones gently offset by the lighter more orangey bands is soothing but a different mood than your goal. I can imagine a series in different light with different appealing color palates.
I agree that a bit lower would be better. But nature may not cooperate.
I like the placement in the frame and the darker band near the top.
Did you shoot with a tripod? Are you zoomed all the way in? What EXIF?
Image appears soft to me.
Scott
Thanks for the critique guys... like I said, this image isn't hitting my upper crust, but good practice for PP exercise...
Sorry for not showing the exif Scott, I always forget that box.... I did use a tripod, and my 50-200 2.8/3.5 zoom... I also did some with my OM 135/2.8... this is that one shot of 15 that I liked best.
Here is the original file sooc with the exif... warts and all, being that at f22, I notice some dust motes on my sensor.....
RustyBug wrote:
For me, this is similar to Scott's desired "expanse" ... the unknown abyss of the sea lies beyond the known (lighthouse) and having a strong finite known, "stop here" horizon intimates opposite that message. I'd consider cropping the hard line, leaving us into the dark abyss, but it might become an awkward crop ratio then, so softening may be the way to go.
Mono may be calling its name here, as well as artistic rendering ... lots of ways to go with this nice one, but the hue & strong band seem to be holding it back a bit for me. (sooc?)
And Rusty.... I did try several attempts at Mono.... not to my liking... but ymmv, I personally thought the cyan looked best even though I really wanted it to succeed in b/w. I did not purposefully "crush" any reds in post... as you can see, there just aren't any there.... the view was looking more SW as opposed to slightly NW where the sun was setting and there was really zero reds in that part of the sky either.
I did my pp in LR4.... if you can coax enough red to make it look good, good luck mate, I really couldn't see it being good enough, but might be interesting to see what you can make out of it.... also.... here is a 24x30 crop with a hard stop at the dark band of blue.... you are at the terminal abyss my friend.... I personally don't like this crop, but I recognize that it could be objective..... and that given time... the different crop may grow on me, it will be something to consider for sure as I plan a more successful shot... hopefully a sunset with incoming waves splashing up against the LH....
I would have liked to... but as the shot was not as anticipated, I had to get home to the boss to keep up the good will....., this was at sunset, I didn't get home till close to 11. Shot at f22 ISO100 1/6th x 117mm (x 2 crop on Olympus... = 234mm) I do like long shutter shots... we'll see what the future brings.
A little bit (okay, quite a little bit) of artistic liberty @ the abyss, but there was some red in there ... just had to mine for it a bit.
I tried to play on the transitioning light ... hopefully tying together the waning daylight to the waxing darkness, i.e. the reason for Tilly's existence.
). Of course, for artistic intent, anything goes. Nature provides a tremendous amount of latitude in lighting conditions, but this hue just looks not right to these old sailor eyes.
