Giant's Castle

[Dubbs5050]

I went through some old negatives yesterday and scanned a bunch. This is a shot from my travels to South Africa in 2004...we were hiking in the Drakensburg Mountain range, specifically in a park called Giant's Castle.

[Dubbs5050]

unfortunately, a bit of sharpness was lost when I re-sized the file for this post...

[Dubbs5050]

I was hoping to get some feedback on my work retouching this photo....I burned areas pretty dramatically and bumped up the contrast....I wanted to make it as dramatic as possible without making it look fake...here is the original image. Unfortunately I didn't capture the scene right when I was there

[Frog]

It is dramatic in b/w but will admit it also makes me wonder what it looks like in color.
I think I would like something between your first post and the original.
I did not even notice the people at first and I think that is a positive for the shot as when I do see them it gives so much sense of scale.

[Dubbs5050]

thanks, it was quite amazing in color...I wish I loaded my camera with color film that day ... that was back in my pre-digital days.

here is a shot of the same range in color, from much farther out ...

[amorton1437]

I like the color shot! But the first one gives off a very ominous vibe to me, which works. I like the darkness of it.

[shootme]

Well as far as your work in re-touching it's great well done. Aside from what you mention on the sharpness, I think you did a great job with the first shot.