Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Cliff with snow and trees - Marmot Is., Alaska

This image was taken in the winter of 1995 on an island in the western Gulf of Alaska called Marmot Island. It was during the early days of my photography. It is quite obvious what caught my attention.

At the time I had a Canon EOS 100 and I always shot with slide Fuji ISO50-200; ocassionally ISO400. No idea what the camera settings were for this shot. I scanned this slide in at 4000 dpi and cleaned it up using the spot tool in Photoshop. I made slight adjustments to Levels and Curves and added a little sharpening. Comments welcome. Damian

4 comments:

Gareth said...

The magic here is the sun picking out the rear headland. The shot feels slightly unbalanced though - as if your head is trying to look around the corner.

Anonymous said...

Agree with G's comments - you really want to look round to that headland! It also feels a little tall and and thin too. For me, I'd have used the levels to ensure the foreground white was actually white, as it has an unnatural blue cast too. Foreground-wise, not much to cath the eye. Still, you can definitely see the budding talent within!
Ivan

Critical Light said...

Thanks for your comments. To be honest, my head has never wanted to look around the corner in this photo. My eyes are drawn to the surf, beach, black sand and then toward the sunlit area. However, I have always felt an unbalance in this photo. I think it either needs more to the left, so a bit more of the forest, or more of the sea.

Perhaps a better angle would have been further from the right so more of the sea was i the photo and a little more the sunlit area but that was not possible. I was close enough to the edge as I wanted to get.

The blue cast in the light was not unnatural. Because it was late in the day there was a strong blueness in the light; this also highlights the feeling of coldness. I remember this field trip very well; my small chocolate mousse would freeze before I ate it. If I used the snow in the foreground as my white point I would lose that real quality.

So, can this image be improved through an elaborate crop..

Damian

Anonymous said...

I didn't think the human eye suffered from colour cast effects like photographic film and sensors do? If they do, I've learned something new...if they don't, then D is talking bollocks!
Ivan