Badlands

[Manfred M]

These are three shots that I have had on my hard drive for a number of years, but have never been quite happy with once I finished processing them. These are the Badlands near Drumheller, Alberta Canada. This area has fossil beds of dinosaur bones. The shots were taken in the fall during evening golden hour.


1,






2.





3.

[Shadowman]

Nice series.

[FootLoose]

I think the 3rd one has potential in terms of the composition.

[Urbanflyer]

It seems that each has the opportunity for cropping that might increase their appeal. Here is what I would consider, given my style. You may find other approaches that appeal to you.

1.shadow in the horizontal middle grabs my eye and holds it. Cropping out 2/3 of the sky moves the entry point to the image to the foreground, which then leads to the shadow but continues on up into the hills.

2. A crop similar to # 1 plus a small amount off of the left is worth considering.

3. The sky in this one is one of its best features. Therefore you might consider cropping out the foreground to just below the whitish area.

I am not ever concerned about aspect ratio, so don't consider that in my crops. Some, however, prefer to heed that element, in which case the options for crops are fewer.

[ccphoto]

The problem shooting the Badlands is the natural tone/saturation and colors are almost flat and lifeless. I've shot the Badlands from South Dakota to Canada and while I see great beauty through my viewfinder, I rarely get the same result from the sensor image. Cannot exactly explain why other than the eye has a far broader range of tonal/color/saturation than the sensor ever dreamed of, thus sorta, eh...mebbe final, kinda, iffy, ugh final images.

[Manfred M]

Thanks for the thoughts Judith and Chris:

1. Judith - as I print a lot of my photographs, I crop to print sizes most of the time. Standard paper and frame sizes don't give me the flexibility to crop to size unless I am willing to go for custom framing, which gets quite expensive.

2. Chris - I suspect you are right. I don't photograph a lot of badlands and these shots were taken 8 years ago, so my knowledge and style have developed a lot in that time. I suspect badlands are likely like mountain landscapes; the viewer is so overwhelmed by the scenery the fundamentals of a point of interest tend to get lost. I thought I had managed reasonably well here with visual cues to let the eyes wander through the scene the way had planned, but perhaps these cues are simply not strong enough. I will go back and do some more dodging and burning to make them a bit more obvious. I was trying to use the "S-surve" in these shots. It is there, but it is fairly subtle.

[ccphoto]

I was speaking a bit more generic than specific to your images. I've shot them many times and yet to be overly happy with any of them..probably operator error on my part. Cheers!

[mugge]

Manfred, as Chris has so eloquently pointed out. There aint much that can be done with these photos Maybe the third one in sepia or something extreeme?
Cheers Ole