Most years I take the dog and go camping in the eastern Columbia River Gorge or Cascade Range foot-hills. That area in April and May is one of my “Happy Places.” Photography can be challenging, because bland skies (all gray or all blue) and winds are common. I’ve tried to catch good sky color here on many occasions, but haven’t had much success. A little over a week ago I camped a couple of nights in this area again, and hiked out to this perch three times hoping for good light. The third time was the charm, and in a true black swan moment the winds even cooperated.
Specific Feedback Requested
No specific questions, but any and all suggestions welcome.
Technical Details
Is this a composite: Yes
Truth-In-Blending Disclosure: This is a blend of six images. A darker image to protect the red highlights in the sky and a brighter image for better detail of the canyon, both taken at 0533. I blended four images of the foreground for depth-of-field, all taken around 0611 when the wind calmed (and the scene was brighter so I could use a faster shutter speed.) I’ve corrected the perspective just a little to expand the canyon and sky at the expense of the flowers. The sweep of the clouds almost matched the canyon, but not quite; I’ve nudged the left side a bit farther left. I’ll post the jpgs the camera took (alongside the raw files I actually used) below so you can have an idea of what I started with.
NIKON Z 7II
NIKKOR Z 20mm f/1.8 S
1/13 sec. at f/4.5 and ISO 64 (sky)
0.6 sec. at f/4.5 and ISO 64 (canyon)
1/30 sec. at f/6.3 and ISO 800 (foreground)
John, I knew this was one of your images before I even clicked on the photo. Your processing always brings out the best in a scene without being overdramatic or unrealistic. Your composition in this photo is wonderful as well as the colors.
This is lovely and so dramatic. The composition is very strong. The sky dominates a bit too much IMO. Possibly lightening it a bit would keep my attention from sticking there quite so much. The flowers have such presence…are they a kind of wild carrot like Queen Anne’s lace?
Looks like you and the dog had enough patience for this to all pay off for you John. What a great scene. The scene the way you processed it is totally believable. The foreground flowers are amazing and you finally got the correct clouds to make the sky pop a little bit. I hate to even suggest anything but I might dodge just the flowers a tiny bit and if you’re not apposed, clone out the 2 bare spots directly apposed to each other on the right and left side of the frame with some more flowers. Great job of blending these. It is tack sharp throughout the scene.
I love the scene. The composition, light, and processing are spectacular. At a certain level, thought, this almost feels like a sky-replacement image as the colors in the sky and the land seem on the opposite sides of the color wheel. I played with the image and brought some of the red/magenta color into the lower parts. Not sure if that’s entirely the correct approach, but it does seem to make the image a little more cohesive.
Spectacular image John, sometimes the Photo Gods do smile upon us and bring it all together after years of trying. There is a lot to be said for persistence. I appreciate your “Truth in Blending” disclosure, and I think that the blending approach is fine, since it helped you to achieve the vision that you had of this image.
The composition is great, and I wouldn’t change a thing about it. Getting arrangements of flowers like this is much harder to achieve than it looks, and yours is perfectly balanced. It’s a perfect foreground. I agree with @Tony_Kuyper, I think his rework of color makes the light more consistent across the scene. Color is very subjective, but I think Tony’s tweak is in the right direction.
Thank you for your comments and thoughts all! Here’s a version with the suggested changes.
@Kris_Smith I brightened the sky a tad. I believe this is Pungent Desert Parsley, Lomatium grayi.
@David_Haynes I did a quick and dirty Content Aware fill and brightened the flowers some.
@Tony_Kuyper and @Ed_McGuirk , that’s a “blame my own self” change. I didn’t like how red the canyon was, but swept in the foreground plants when I adjusted. This version leaves the red reduction in the canyon but removes it from the Desert Parsley.
I’ll post it in the original post for comparison, but I’ll also post it here so it can be clicked twice to view full size. (At least on my monitor, that is lost because clicking changes to comparing the two versions when they are in the same post.)
