Fotheringate sunrise

[whited3]

Hi all.

Sunrise at Fotheringate on Flinders Island on a recent trip. No colour in the sky to speak of and a very cold, blue morning.

5Ds, EF 16-35mm f/4 L at 16mm, f11, 2s, ISO 50.
Filters were a 6 stop ND, 3 stop GND for the sky and a CPL.
I tend to do 90% of processing in ACR and used PS for cropping and sharpening.

C&C welcome.

[pnodrog]

Very nice. It may be better if the closest white/grey/blue parts of the rock were toned down a bit and warmed very slightly. At the moment it attracts a bit much of my attention. I toured Tasmania about two years ago but never went to Flinders Island. The whole region is a great part of the world for photography.

[Geoff F]

Shooting towards the light is never easy but this image works fo me.

[Manfred M]

I agree with the others, this is a very nice shot, especially considering the strong back-light you are working with.

I find that the saturation in the foreground looks like it has been pushed a bit too hard. I've never seen lichen on rocks that look quite that red. The large rock in the foreground has a blue colour cast and looks a bit strange and it draws a bit too much attention for my taste, so burning it down might be worth considering.

This is more what I was thinking (I spend most of my time dodging and burning in my workflow). If you do not like this, I can remove this image. If you click on either of the images to activate Lightbox mode, using the arrows will toggle between your original and my retouch.

[DanK]

Mark,

I partly agree with Manfred.

It's a nice scene, but my eyes keep coming back to the foreground, which is where much of the detail is--tonal contrast, texture, and especially color contrast. This is partly because the foreground is (to my eye) oversaturated.

The question I would start with is this: where do you want the viewer's eye to go? Most often, foreground elements serve a framing function, and the composition draws the eye from them toward the primary subject of interest. Yours seems the reverse: the larger scene is mostly a backdrop for the interesting material in the foreground.

Manfred's version is too dark and to limited in tonal contrast for my taste, but I agree with what he was trying to do, that is, to reduce the visual dominance of the foreground.

Editing can help, but I wonder whether a different composition would be more powerful, if the rocks and lichens are your main subject.

Dan

[whited3]

Gents,

Thanks for the C&C. I have acted on Paul's comment and backed off the saturation and warmed the FG rocks, leaving the grass as is.

Dan, to your specific question about the viewers eye....to me this image does not have a specific subject or "path", rather its meant to be a scene or vista (front to back, not side to side). Cold, remote, peaceful.

I'm better at the "doing" (standing in the dark on a cold beach) than "describing".

[DanK]

Gents,

Dan, to your specific question about the viewers eye....to me this image does not have a specific subject or "path", rather its meant to be a scene or vista (front to back, not side to side). Cold, remote, peaceful.

Mark,

Keeping in mind that I know so little that this comment may not be worth much--

There is a good bit of art that does what you describe. For example, i think some of Monet's water lilies--although not all of them--fit your description.

However, to do that successfully, one has to let the eye wander in the intended direction, not draw it back to an edge. Toning down the foreground may be enough to do that.

Along these lines, there is a "rule" that one should avoid bright, high-contrast material on edges. I think it's better to consider it a guideline, as many successful artists break this "rule" intentionally. But as a general guideline, it's often better to avoid high-contrast material that draws the eye to an edge.

Just my two cents.

Dan

[Manfred M]

Mark - Just to pick up with what Dan has written.

You may feel that you have not given the image a specific path, but you actually have. Scientists have studied how the human visual system works for many years. One of the earliest researchers of note was the Soviet psychologist, Alfred Yarbus who did his research in the 1950s and 1960s.

We now know that the human visual system is attracted to:

1. Areas of brightness;
2. Areas of high contrast, and
3. Saturated colours.

Your image has an abundance of all three. The bright rocks in the foreground, the bright area from the sun behind the mountain and the red lichen on the rocks. Those are the defacto areas which draw the eye in your image.

For the photographer to guide the viewer through the image, the photographer needs to try to establish a visual path for the viewer to do so. I attempted to do this with my edits in #4. I slightly desaturated certain colours, to reduce their impact. I slightly darkened some of the brightest areas (i.e.in photo parlance, I "burned them down") and opened some of the shadow areas (again in photo parlance "dodged" these areas).

Let me completely change the character of your image by removing the sky and mountains in the background and concentrate on the foreground rocks. This tells a completely different story from your original. The tufts of grass are now the centre of interest, complemented by the reflection of the sun on the water.

[billtils]

I like what you have done here.

[pnodrog]

I agree with the others, this is a very nice shot, especially considering the strong back-light you are working with.

I find that the saturation in the foreground looks like it has been pushed a bit too hard. I've never seen lichen on rocks that look quite that red. The large rock in the foreground has a blue colour cast and looks a bit strange and it draws a bit too much attention for my taste, so burning it down might be worth considering.

You need to visit Tasmania.

The red on the rocks is very vivid and yes, very easy to make look oversaturated. It's a fine balance between making them look as they really are but not too gaudy.

[Manfred M]

You need to visit Tasmania.

The red on the rocks is very vivid and yes, very easy to make look oversaturated. It's a fine balance between making them look as they really are but not too gaudy.

Paul - you are 100% right here. I have visited a number of places; skies in the Himalayas and Andes, the mountain meadows of the Canadian Rockies, the blue waters of glacial lakes in the Canadian Rockies, the turquoise waters of the Caribbean, etc where the colours are so vivid, many would say they don't look believable.

In those scenes I tend to err on the side of caution and if anything, will slightly desaturate, as needed. I want the viewers to appreciative the piece and not get hung up on a particular element in the work.