Goodnight Mount Arthur (II)

[Colin Southern]

I'm in two minds about this shot - does it work?

[Brigitte]

It works for me...!
I like this shot..

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Colin,

Yes I think so, I spent a bit of time going between this and (I).

I think both work, although see my post in (I) for more.

Cheers,

[Keith]

I much prefer this one.

[Donald]

I much prefer this one.

I go the other way and prefer (I). Why?

For me the organic matter on the water is too busy and distracts from what's behind. In (I) it does not have the same effect and attention is thrown towards the hills and the sunset, particularly the reflection. That reflection doesn't make the same impact in (II)... I think !

I don't go near the technical aspects ... apart from just striving to get somewhere close to producing images like that.

Donald

[kevinbythebeach]

I like it, but I'd crop the bottom so that on the bottom right the plant matter or whatever it is is very skinny ....

[Keith]

Having read your thoughtsDonald, I understand what your saying, but I have to say I still prefer this one over the cropped version.
I don't seem to find the organic matter distracting, my eye seems to go straight to the colours of the sunset and then I look around the rest of the scene.
Maybe panoramic is more pleasing to my eye

[Wirefox]

I go with this version mainly because of what you said about printing to large format. I can see this working far better in a gallery style environment. The portrait version is still a stunning image but this scene begs landscape to me.

[Colin Southern]

Thanks everyone.

The "organic matter" is just wet mud by the way. This shot is probably what NASA would call a "successful failure"; this location requires high tide to do anything with, and as I drove by I saw that it WAS high-tide, so I pulled over and setup shop ...

... unfortunately, high-tide had just peaked, and as the sun set to a more ideal position, the water started retreating VERY quickly (the mud flats are very flat), and within minutes my primary composition was literally "high and dry". So I thought I'd try to make the best of a bad situation, and capture some of the light reflecting off the (still wet) mud.

Just a case of "going throught the motions" and "hoping for the best". Just for the record, I shot it with a Singh-Ray 3-Stop reverse GND filter - not much PP with the exception of dust spot removel and tweaking of colours/saturation etc to taste.

@ Kevin. Thanks for that Kevin. I agree that less distracting material at the bottom would be better - unfortunately, the more I crop off, the more it moves the horizon line down, and that breakes the rule of thirds (I'm pushing it already). Much as I love breaking rules like that, the result has to justify it - and I don't think that that would have worked in this case. I probably should have composed it a little differently.

[joec]

Colin, I definitely like this better than the vertical. Not sure I could put why into words. Maybe I'm just enamored of the panorama landscapes.

By the way, did you use a split ND filter on this shot?

Thanks,
Joe

[Colin Southern]

Colin, I definitely like this better than the vertical. Not sure I could put why into words. Maybe I'm just enamored of the panorama landscapes.

By the way, did you use a split ND filter on this shot?

Thanks,
Joe

Hi Joe,

Thanks for that. Yes, I used a Singh-Ray 3-Stop hard edged Reverse GND.