Last Day in Glacier N.P.

[Lon Howard]

A while back I posted some images while on a 2 day visit through Glacier National Park. Notoriously slow as I am with PP, here are a few from the last day. Thanks for viewing, and as always, C&C are welcomed.



Everyone's trophy shot ... The Polebridge Mercantile on the park's west side. From here on the roads are 'off' roads, at least for a tenderfoot.




But anyway I thought I'd try the one hour bumpy ride to Bowman Lake, to get those serene majestic images in the brochures.




Instead I got this. Chilly, drizzly and so much wind I literally couldn't keep my eyes open; so I set up the tripod at my feet and did about 10 clicks before gathering it all up to make a retreat. I did mention that I'm a tenderfoot, I think.




Oh sure ... now that I'm back to civilization and on my way out, the weather is glorious!




One last look at Lake McDonald before calling it a day, and a visit. Now that it's done, I keep thinking I could have done more with the sky on this one. Hmm ...

[Geoff F]

Basically all good, Lon.

My only thoughts are; if you could have got the building without any vehicles it would have been excellent, although maybe impossible. You could then have turned it into an aged B&W.

#2 has a couple of stray branches in the top left corner.

#3 has a large area of out of focus water at the bottom. I would try to reduce it. Either go for a different size ratio or take a similar amount from the sides.

#4 looks fine to me.

#5 I would say the sky is OK but too much dark and uninteresting water at the bottom. Once again, I would crop to a different ratio or lose some from the sides. It doesn't require a heavy crop; just sufficient to create a better balance.

[dje]

Good stuff Lon. I like them, especially #3,#4 and#5.

With #3, the weather wasn't good but I think you've got a shot with a difference here - not the pristine lake/mountain shot but something with a "darker" mood.

With #4, the composition works well I think and the colours are lovely.

With #5, I agree with Geoff that you could crop off a bit of the water at the bottom. You could also try bumping up the colour saturation in the sky and on the mountains and also maybe add some surface blur to the water.

Dave

[pnodrog]

Well done.

#2 I agree with Geoff that the branches on the left need chopping. The road looks picturesque but as I live on one like it I insist on it being tar sealed. (sorry bit of local politics)

# 3 and 5 I think both shots need copping to put the shoreline on about the third.

#5 Would be great with just a little more saturation in the sky.

[Lon Howard]

Thanks. #2 Was just to show what the road was like between Polebridge and the lake, but the branches can come out easily. With #3, if it hadn't been so miserable standing there, and trying to keep the camera dry, I would've tried various settings but as it was, all the exposures were at 1/4 sec. With all the unrest in the water, a faster shutter speed would've been better, I feel, especially since I wanted the wave action up close. I think what I'll try is to find an exposure that shows different wave action that looks sharper and then fuse it with another one that has a sky I like to cut down on PP. If that doesn't work, then a crop will have to do.

I've never tried surface blur, Dave. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll give it a whirl.

I thought about the vehicles in #1 but thought it a little rude to separate the customers inside from their sandwiches.

So there's work to do here ...

[Lon Howard]

I've tried to plug in some of your suggestions and here's where I am ... so far.

Here, I did cut out the out of focus foam at the bottom - the wave I left in because it was part of the experience I want to remember, although it too is still a little soft; selective sharpening seemed to do more harm than good though. That left the shoreline smack in the middle of the frame but cropping out the sky took too much of the drama out of the image, it seemed. Sometimes you're just stuck with how it is, I guess. I did crop some off the left to keep the shoreline convergence out of the middle as well.




Here, I cropped out some of the dark water from the bottom and then took some off the top to keep the shoreline from creeping down. The remaining water at the bottom left is still a little dark but selectively lighting it flattened out the tonality, so I did a levels adjustment to brighten up all of the water and that seemed to give the whole image a little lift. To me, the water is as much of the story as the rest so I didn't want to take any more of it. I didn't want to take any of either side because it removed so much of the mountains and made the shoreline convergence largely irrelevant. Saturating the sky helped for sure but I left the mountains as is because I wanted them to remain bright. Dave, not being familiar with surface blur, I wasn't sure how it could help out the water. Can you tell me what you had in mind? Thanks.

[dje]

Lon I ran it quickly through Photoshop. Selected just the water, then Filter, Blur, Surface Blur and adjusted Pixel Radius and Threshold to taste. Here is the sort of thing you get with Pixel Radius 50 and Threshold 70.

It was just a thought - I'm not sure whether I like it or not. Feel free to tell me it's rubbish !

Dave

[Lon Howard]

It was just a thought - I'm not sure whether I like it or not. Feel free to tell me it's rubbish !

Rubbish? Oh no, not when you've just taught me something I can use ... and will!

[cliffmccartney]

Great shots Lon. I especially like #4. My wife and I are planning to vacation at Glacier N.P this summer. I'd appreciate any tips you could throw my way