What to do with images of this nature - challenge

[ajohnw]

An example of what LightZone's soft lighting does. Default settings. The effect can be weaken or strengthened.
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John
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[jcuknz]

With the pre-occupation with 'what to do with it' I am left puizzled as to what exactly are those things you captured?

[ajohnw]

With the pre-occupation with 'what to do with it' I am left puizzled as to what exactly are those things you captured?

They are unique natural rock formations sculpted by wind and rain in Turkey in an area known as Cappadocia. Formed from a relatively soft volcanic rock. Sometimes basalt settled on top of that so some of the features have hard cones on the top. Rather a long time ago people dug out caves in them, hence the holes, also Christian churches even rather large completely under ground cities. There is one of those that has 7 levels. Few links - wiki is wrong refering to them as temples - many are decorated with saints etc. They are very very early churches. There is a whole valley full of them and several others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cappadocia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churches_of_Göreme,_Turkey

John

PS My avatar is an attempt to get a shot of the roof of a church - didn't get my head out of the way. Pictures not allowed now as some twerps used flash.
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[Rob Ekins]

The question was asked what would you do with this picture? I have only been taking photographs and learning how to process them for just over a year. I can't compete with with some of you more experienced photographers in trying to make this image interesting and at the same time make it as natural as possible.So I have come up with the surreal look and called the image Spooky Rocks. I have put this image on Flickr to enable me to download it here.I have attributed the original image to you but if you want me to remove it from Flickr let me know.
John

John,

I really like the image you came up with,

My first thought was... Frank Gehry and Edvard Munch just had lunch...

Not a bad thing in my mind ...


Robbie

[RustBeltRaw]

I am interested in what could be done with it so have posted a pretty large jpg to leave scope for processing. In the past I have found threads where people process other people's shots useful especially when they list what they have done.

At the risk of sounding brusque? Toss it. Post-processing is not magic, and will not save a shot you're not a fan of.

You say "this one" is not terribly inspiring, which implies that you have better shots from the day. Those, I'd love to see, because this is a fascinating location.

[ajohnw]

At the risk of sounding brusque? Toss it. Post-processing is not magic, and will not save a shot you're not a fan of.

You say "this one" is not terribly inspiring, which implies that you have better shots from the day. Those, I'd love to see, because this is a fascinating location.

I think they boil down to holiday shots really. I may be able to do something with some of the none rock shots and maybe even one or two of those as well.

If you want to look I generally post all shots to the link in my signature. Must admit I am surprised by my framing in some of them. I also often take multiple exposures. Even found that I could hit a button and set pure manual focusing by accident. It will be interesting to see what hugin can do with the perspective on some.

Not the idea place to shoot. It took a while to discover it was best to shoot at about -0.7 stops. Lots of people too. I was on tour with a coach party with a hectic schedule - birthday present from my wife.

Why this post - curious about what could be done about some of the problems in the shot as they may crop up elsewhere. Others may find that useful too. It has been useful for me anyway.

John
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[RustBeltRaw]

The organic-geometric contrast in this shot is pretty cool. This is a really fascinating location. Istanbul is the most photogenic city I've ever visited, and it seems that's also true for much of Turkey.

[rpcrowe]

I played with this using NIK Viveza II Software... I globally decreased the brightness a bit and increased the contrast plus added some structure. I then selected the background increasing the blue and contrast....



If I were starting with an original RAW file, I would do some input and output sharpening as well as some selective sharpening of the foreground...

[ajohnw]

I reckon that is about the best natural shot of the lot Richard. It just goes to show that it can be possible to turn something difficult into a decent interesting photo. Believe it or not I did spend some time framing this one. Often it was impossible, caught a bit of rock to the left which could be cropped out. I had also wondered about cloning out the tree tops using "rocks". I also used a technique that I think of as weighting on 1/3rd's bit like the way painters position things in landscapes. It doesn't seem to be a hard an fast positioning either. Using that approach the odd buildings and unusual features in places are ok as they should be noticed later.

I have looked at lots of photo's of the area and all / most seem to have problems. The landscape is basically over whelming. One bad aspect of the tour was that photo stops were always at major tourist sites. More easily handled scenes are available but the coaches do not stop at these just drive past them. Also 4 such stops in one day. I was totally shattered after that.

Good plug for NIK too. I'm away for a while and must see if I can do something similar using my most used app - fotoxx.- when I get back for practice. Other than a generic improve I haven't tried to do anything else with it. The methods that have been used to process it have broadened my repertoire. Haze distance and harsh sunlight crop up from time to time.

John
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