Congratulations to Justin Grimm for winning Feature Thread of the Week with 7 votes - View Previous Winners
This is the first of many images that will be added into a brand new portfolio of mine called "For the Bright"! I love the drama and excitement of an epic sunset or moody twilight image, but recently I have been focusing on shooting while the sun is casting direct light over a scene. Taking time to study how the light can create more interesting compositions and depth to an image is something I want to strive for in the future.
Utilizing focus blending, I aligned a rock no more then 8 inches from my lens to complete the curve formed by the right cliff face 1000 feet below. I waited till the sun dropped enough to only light up the areas I wanted, and I love the natural bright frame it provided me with.
As for the "glitter", that comes from all the tiny fruit flies in front of the lens being lit up by the sun. I chose not to clone them out since they make it just a bit more magical :P
It's cool to see you chasing some different light in your shots. Nice work with the focus stacking. I do like the composition, but I am thinking the sky feels too bright. I think... I would darken the sky to get it to a little closer match the brightness of your lit up foreground. As it is, the Bright sky to dim canyon to lit up foreground doesn't flow evenly in terms of light. For visual flow, it's not always about physical leading lines, but also about leading lines created by light.
Anyway, like I said, I think... that would help this otherwise nice shot.
Thanks for the suggestions, but the brightness of the sky is a very delibarate choice on my part, and quite accurate of how the sky looked. Dropping the exposure would be a very easy way to get more colour, but keeping it right on the edge of being bright and still having detail was a lot harder for me to pull off. I'm looking right into the sun that is still well above the horizon, so I want it to feel like that.
Great shot Justin. The Sun placement balances the image very nicely. The sky and foreground rocks lost some highlight detail in the red channel though.
I really like the overall composition and great sharpness throughout.
Fred
Nice. Sunset/sunrise color is always a joy, but I have found I almost prefer the moment about 5 minutes later when the sun is just starting to wash across the landscape and lighting everything up with the start of a new day.
It's definitely a bit bright for my liking, but I still like it nonetheless. Plus, it's your image, so as long as you're happy with it. Overall, nice work!
