Landscape process

[GrahamH]

A while ago Dave Humphries started a thread (Shooting an informal gig in open air)with his approach to a shoot. I enjoyed it and learnt from it. Love to see more. Here’s my attempt to take a shot.
Lesson one – clean sensor. Actually been dirty for a couple of weeks, need to make time.
1 - 3 images
Location – North West Bay. The circled area indicates where I was working. You can see it is in a bowl.
4-7 images
Some great textured rock, but painful to sit and impossible to kneel without some protection.
8, 9, 10, 11
Low, lower, lowest, closer – now we are getting there. I was as low as possible, camera in a slight hollow. In 9 and 10 you can see a second rock beyond the foreground one.
12 Using second rock as foreground.
13 Calcified coral embedded in the rock and broken so multiple textures can be seen.
Definitely need to get knee pads and a cushion. Wear old shoes as they get a battering on the rock. Go VERY slow. There is so much grip it is incredibly easy to catch a foot, even slightly - and there is no slippage. Keep your eyes open as there is so much texture and shapes to be able to use, easy to miss it.

Graham
The pics.

[Downrigger]

Nice. Appealing especially because we have a bout of winter recidivism going on here in Utah.
I wonder if lower angled light (earlier or later in day) would have helped accentuate the interesting textures you were seeking to capture.
The real challenge though, that I struggle with, is to capture the appeal in the nature of the rock's detail while preserving the context of the scene which renders the nature of the rock more interesting. In part, this is a matter of preserving depth of field, and trying to make the small subject and larger setting speak in the same image. You can see here my not-so-successful struggle with this: The lichen on red conglomerate is beautiful to me, but distressingly clinical without setting, and adding the setting didn't work out that well - DOF is inadequate - and in this example, including the setting leads to a confused composition. Maybe others can provide more successful efforts in this vein...

[GrahamH]

Good morning Mark,
Interesting rock with the lichen. Loved the colours on the first one, harder to bring out on the second. The first one works well as an abstract. I know what you mean about a setting so people can realise what it is.
The second one, a great one for photographers to see. I feel that a non-photog would just walk straight past. The hills do seem to be rather barren (at least at this time of year) so have little to capture the eye (as a non-photog that is). However, the gullies and peaks provide macro texture, the foreground rock micro detail - and the sky was a great addition as well. Difficult to balance the three I agree.
Would a composition to the side of the rock work. Rather than having the rock dead centre, move over to one side, and clip the rock. That is, don't show the full rock. You could get closer as it wouldn't dominate as much and be able to show more detail as a result.
Graham

[Downrigger]

Good morning Mark,
Interesting rock with the lichen. Loved the colours on the first one, harder to bring out on the second. The first one works well as an abstract. I know what you mean about a setting so people can realise what it is.
The second one, a great one for photographers to see. I feel that a non-photog would just walk straight past. The hills do seem to be rather barren (at least at this time of year) so have little to capture the eye (as a non-photog that is). However, the gullies and peaks provide macro texture, the foreground rock micro detail - and the sky was a great addition as well. Difficult to balance the three I agree.
Would a composition to the side of the rock work. Rather than having the rock dead centre, move over to one side, and clip the rock. That is, don't show the full rock. You could get closer as it wouldn't dominate as much and be able to show more detail as a result.
Graham

Thanks Graham. This is a walk I do about weekly, and I'll keep working on the problem. If ever it gets around to getting green around here, those hills will make a nice contrast with whatever I manage to do with the foreground rocks. Barren won't get fixed absent more climate change. I agree that dumping that rock dead center is not the answer! If I get something I think better in the next few weeks, I'll post it.