Great Salt Lake

http://www.pbase.com/prinothcat/image/124770012.jpg
Spring evening on the Great Salt Lake. I try get em as I see em, and not have to spend time in post. My goal is to do as little as possible after the fact. It's a hold over from film, which is still my medium of choice. That being said, this is digital because I blew another appointment and did not take my F-5. Please no edits.

Cool to see another SLC area person here!

There's a lot going on in this image - a bit too much, I think. The biggest issue is the uneven exposure. I understand not wanting to do any post-processing. That's fine - a personal choice. But in this case, I think the photo either needs some editing or it's not going to work. Even if this was a film image I'd suggest some work - but in the darkroom, of course. It desperately needs to be lightened up on the right side.

I also think this photo would really benefit from a tighhter composition. I would crop out the empty sky (down to just above the clouds) and from the left. Cropping from the left would also help even the exposure. To my eye, the main subject is the island (Antelope?) and the clouds. Everything else frames those things and should be somewhat minimized. I think the crop I'm suggesting makes the composition a lot stronger and holds my attention longer.

I just want to make another comment on your aversion to editing. Like I said - there's nothing wrong with that. But, you might consider loosening up a little on that attitude. In this case, I think you've got the makings of a great photo - if you do a bit of post-processing. You can always aspire to and attempt to get it all "in-camera." That's a worthy aspiration. But it's good to keep your mind open and be a little flexible so that you're able to get the best of an image like this that might not be so great right out of the camera.

Opinions humbly submitted. Thanks for sharing :)

Yeah the textures in the right have are really nice, but the blown highlight really damages the overall impact.

I think it is a very nice picture. PJ covered most of the things but I would like to add that by the horizon being in the center of the picture it effectivly cuts your photo in half, Jeff

Thanks. I personally think I missed the angle need on the ND I threw over the top half. It would have dropped the EV on the left to balance the exposure. Instead of horizontal, it needed to be more upper right (1 o'clock) to left horizon or sightly below (9:30). I also need to pick up an set of color neutral ND grads, this one is Cokin and is not neutral (note the red cast in the clouds)
I agree on the crop, I'm playing with cutting some of the foreground as well. I wanted the ripple marks, but probably have too much going on there. Recropped, and I've also played a bit with color balance, to cut some of the pink cast. It also may have helped the right side a bit.
http://www.pbase.com/image/124881251.jpg
This one may be to blue.. Nice catch on the vignetting, I missed the piece of the holder in the top left...

I personally like the half-crop horizon. I do like the exposure and the image stands well on its own. But as was said, I do also think post processing could help make this an excellent gallery print. Processing could also level the horizon.

Pressing the shutter, as Ansel Adams would say, means 'the jobs only half done'. Even in the film days, the most dedicated and talented photographers spent a lot of time and effort in the dark room. Today, our dark rooms are on our computer. The zeal for 'no editing' I think is built on false pretenses - that development beyond standard default is 'bad'.

In the professional world, doing a 'no-editing' workflow may be a lot easier, but its extremely limiting. Though, I don't know if professional work is your intention.

It also looks like whatever filters you were using caused some vignetting, but, I like it anyway.

Here's another from the same shoot.. A bit more color balance, then full desaturation.
There is still detail in the left/middle side of the sand it's hard to see. The one thing I see right off is there is no full black, but if there were I believe there would be substantial detail lost throughout the image. I might have moved the horizon a bit up or down but I wanted the symmetry between the clouds and the sand.
http://www.pbase.com/prinothcat/image/124949284.jpg

:)

In general, putting the subject right in the middle is a no-no. In this case you've got both the island and the horizon right smack in the middle - a double fault! But with the two traingles of sand and cloud I think it works. I also thing the black and white conversion works well here.

I think the crop and density adjustment are nice improvements of a fairly decent capture. The main issue I see with the original is too much loss of detail in the middle left area. The image is really about the sand texture - the rest, I believe, is incidental. The edit provides a much needed drop in lightness and moves the horizon up a bit, getting it away from being split in half.

But I really like the last pic you posted. It may not have the texture the first has but it does have the contrast to really catch your eye.

G

The second manipulation is very nice. But fiddling with ND gradients in lieu of just doing PP work is, in my opinion the definition of perverse.

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Originally Posted by daq7

The second manipulation is very nice. But fiddling with ND gradients in lieu of just doing PP work is, in my opinion the definition of perverse.

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I fully and respectfully disagree. I can visualize (usually) with ND's and can see when I make my exposure what I'm trying to get. For me there is no"fiddling". Trying to "make it work" in post is what I want to avoid, making it work in post is "fiddling" to me. My view is make the best image possible in camera and do small fine tuning in post. I see it as a couple of minutes with a filter vs too much time (for me at least) in front of my laptop. I want to be out seeing and making images as opposed to driving a computer. It's my background I guess.
These are far from perfect, and I strongly suspect they would have been even worse if I had simply set up and shot with a naked lens. The blown highlights would be even worse. If I recall the sky in these was at least a 4-6 stop variation over the foreground of black sand, right at the edge of the latitude of the sensor.

It's great to see another Utah person. It was a surprise to see a picture of Salt Lake since we are planning to go out to Antelope Island this weekend.

We need to arrange a little SLC area photo outing, I think :)

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Originally Posted by Photo-John

We need to arrange a little SLC area photo outing, I think :)

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I'd play along, and play nicely too for that matter. Can we start and end at Epic Brewing? :cool: