gdanmitchell
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 Re: Catch of the First Light at Zabriskie in Death Valley | |
Jeffrey wrote:
Good, Kee. I hope you are not actually limiting your crops to predefined sizes, but rather simply moving the top down to the place it looks best, and not worrying what the actual dimension or aspect ratio is.
There is a place for that, especially with subjects that just plain don\'t fit \"normal\" aspect ratios. However, there are also some fine reasons for preferring certain aspect ratios. I\'m certainly not saying that any one is more right than any others, but some folks learn to \"see\" in the context of a favored ratio. (My preference - and your mileage may vary - is for the 4:3 ratio, though I\'ll sometimes do 4:5 or 2:1 and occasionally do others.)
There is another practical reason as well. When you mount and frame work, it is a whole lot simpler - as long as this works for your aesthetic, and it does for mine - to generally stick to a favored ratio. This can reduce your costs for mounting/framing materials, and it can often help your work be more cohesive when you hang groups of prints, say in a show or a sale. It also lets you reuse frames and mat boards and window mats for similar purposes. (And, no, I don\'t sell work in re-used frame/mount, but I\'ll display it that way.)
There aren\'t any hard and fast rules about these things, but lots of folks might agree with me that you shouldn\'t be too quick to dismiss some standardization of presentation.
I\'m not a big fan of the \"v-convergence\" at the lower edge of the frame. I\'m not sure I can quite articulate a reason for this, though the bottom of a v \"points\" the eye toward something... and that something isn\'t present here. I think I prefer the crops that include some of the area below the \"v.\"
This is, of course, a scene that we all have photographed many times. Good to see that you went on a day when the conditions were a bit special, with the clouds over the Panamint Range. This situation has the potential for very special light - but it also has the potential to completely skunk you if the clouds extend behind to the east... and end up blocking the light at the wrong moments! Instead, you have a nice mixture of clouds above the Panamints, a line of light across the front of the range, and then cloud shadow lower down.
The foreground ridge to the right of and beyond Gower Wash is often problematic. The surface facing the sun is light colored and angles almost directly towards sunrise - it is bright! However, the material higher on this ridge is darker and, as in your photograph, often ends up in shadow, creating a sort of local dynamic range challenge. It is easy to lose detail in this shadow area, and it often helps to perhaps use a localized curve or similar technique to slight bring up the detail there. In your shot, you could also consider a bit of lightening of the foreground area down closer to the wash, especially those spots near the tops of these shadowed ridges (there is a good example on the right edge) where there is a bit of a glow from the muted sun - you could consider emphasizing this a bit by means of the dodge tool or, perhaps better, a localized curve adjustment.
Take care,
Dan
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