Acid rain washed tree, Kilauea Iki vent, Hawaii

EXIF: D40, 18-55 Kit Lens, Tiffen $20 polarizer, 1/125s f/10.0 ISO200

Hi Ken

Welcome to OPF, I think your tree photograph could perhaps be improved upon by some shadow/highlight correction. If it were my shot I think I would also take out the tree on the left to increase the feeling of isolation, just a couple of suggestions.....

Hi Ken.

Let me also welcome you to OPF. You didn't encourage discussion of your photo but I am assuming that you won't mind. I am particularly fond of the photographic potential of the Hawaiian islands and I was lucky enough to spend a couple of months there this winter. These scenes are so beautiful, exciting, and they evoke an emotional response from me that is hard to explain. It is often hard to express that feeling in a photograph.

I am wondering what attracted you to this shot? Were trying to exploit the contrast between the tree in shadow and the bright barren surround? The angle of the tree, leaning to the left strikes my eye, there is something unbalanced about the photo. Janet suggested removing some distracting elements to strengthen the composition. When I look at this, I am wondering about the rest of the mountainside, on the right. Do you have another, wider shot you could post? Anyway, thanks for posting this one.

I also noticed that you used a polariser and I think that has caused some strange effects in the sky, lots of cyan nearer the ground and blue-black above.

Hi Ken,

Welcome to OPF and thanks for showing us one of your pictures. I like the picture. I also agree with the comments made by Nathaniel and Janet. The impression I get from this picture is that the tonality just doesn't feel natural. It is as if you've done either some tone mapping, multiple exposure masking or maybe even HDR. Is that so? Just wondering....

Thanks for sharing. Please feel free to show more and take part in other discussions. There is plenty going around.

Cheers,

Cem

Nathaniel Alpert said:

...You didn't encourage discussion of your photo but I am assuming that you won't mind....

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Hi Nathaniel,

This is something we regularly repeat for the benefit of our new(er) members. As per the policy here in OPF, all images posted in OPF are assumed to be for Comment & Critique, unless otherwise designated "Comment Only" or "Edit and Repost". If one insists on having no C&C at all, then the place to be is the "Photography as Art" forum where one can request that no C&C should be given. But that kind of defeats the purpose of posting a photo here to start with, doesn't it?

Cheers,

Cem

Hi all.

A couple notes about this shot. The photo was shot on a D40, in Vivid mode, in JPEG with a cheap filter on it. It appears, substantially, as what was captured in camera (obviously resized). I batch import my pictures into iPhoto for photo management, then I exported this to my desktop and opened it in Capture NX. The only PP done to it was to lighten the foreground just a bit, the rest of the colors are as it appeared out of camera.

The sky over Kilauea is full of some nasty stuff these days (this was taken in January, and there was some serious gas venting in the atmosphere) and it was doing some really bizzare stuff. I have another photo taken nearby that I will post later.

Kilauea Iki is the sight of the 1959 eruption. What you see before you is the top of the cinder cone which is on the northwest side of the Iki crater. The other side of that hill of cinders falls off nearly 600 feet.

This tree is located just south of the direct line between the Iki crater and the Halema`uma`u crater where all the explosive outgassing is going on at the moment... in fact, the whole area where this tree is located is currently being covered by some seriously nasty gasses...

Kilauea is located in an area that would be a rain forest, with the exception that the volcanic gasses cause that rain to become acid rain... causing the near desert conditions in many areas around the volcano.

Although I live in Missouri most of the year, my "second" home is on the Kona coast of the big island and Volcano is my playground.

I am not a landscape photographer, however, nor do I pretend to be one on the internet. Most of what I take pictures of are critters. I have an ongoing project to try to document as many zoos as I can in the US. I started this two years ago and have done several. My landscape photography skills are weak, and I freely admit it. The reason I kind of like this shot is that the colors came out so bizzare.

I love bizzare colors. I generally shoot my pictures JPEG with the Vivid knobs cranked up to about a bazillion. On the D40 this can be interesting, but when I am shooting with my D300 it can get utterly bizzare.

I will be glad to post more about this in the appropriate place here if anybody is actually interested.

I posted this picture because I generally post a picture a day a couple other places, and I just found this forum and I like it very much. This just happened to be "todays picture" not anything particularly special.

This just happened to be "todays picture" not anything particularly special.

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This sort of saddens me. You could so easily make this picture 'particularly special'. I think even I could do so. But, I'm not going to try, since it seems to mean so little to you, the images you post.

OPF is not a 'photo gallery' type of place. I seriously hope it does not become one, but it is changing.

Best wishes,

Ray

Ray West said:

This sort of saddens me. You could so easily make this picture 'particularly special'. I think even I could do so. But, I'm not going to try, since it seems to mean so little to you, the images you post.

OPF is not a 'photo gallery' type of place. I seriously hope it does not become one, but it is changing.

Best wishes,

Ray

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Sorry if my comments were offensive. I obviously have misunderstood the purpose of this forum.

I thought it was a good shot and that this was an appropriate way to share it. Obviously, it isn't.

I won't bother you again.

Cem,

I actually was aware of that. I just wanted be as gentle as possible. And I felt that since this was his first post that I would give him the benefit of the doubt. It seems I wasn't so far off the mark; he wasn't looking for any sort of discussion.

Just to clarify, my sadness was caused by the comment that Ken had made, concerning that he thought that his image 'was not anything special'. As far as I am concerned, no offence was caused.

A number of new posters misunderstand the comment/critique requirement, which others have mentioned here. It is the way that progress is made, in opf. I am not alone in spending a number of hours in trying to get other folks images right for me, sometimes it helps them on their way to getting it right for them, sometimes not. In turn, they help others. Sometimes a new guy can teach the old hands something, look at things in a different light. However, if the owner of the image states that he does not hold his own work as being worthy of any particular attention, it is not anything special, then I wonder why it is posted.

I saw, in this image, as I know Asher did, and many others, something worth pursuing, to get it into a higher level, maybe. But, you can only help someone who wants to be helped.

So, thanks for popping in, Ken. Maybe if you had read the terms and conditions etc., then you would have been prepared a bit more. I think you will have to look very hard on opf to find a 'wow - nice shot' comment, if that is what you wanted, even in the sports section that rarely happens.

Best wishes,

Ray

Welcome Ken. Hey if you like bizarre colors go for it. Many folks like to do images that are more photo illustration than straight photography. I do photo illustrative images sometimes as a diversion from the normal stuff I do.

Scott Buttrick said:

Welcome Ken. Hey if you like bizarre colors go for it. Many folks like to do images that are more photo illustration than straight photography. I do photo illustrative images sometimes as a diversion from the normal stuff I do.

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Scott,

Exactly. It so happens that Ken's picture is not composed the way Ray ot someone else might do it. This is not necessarily being lazy.

I just look at the picture and see what reaction I have to it. Then either I am bored, dislike it, think it's unimportant of find for some reason it attracts me to look more. I'm not saying that this is brilliant art, only that it took in my attention and made me think.

I felt an unease. That led me to study it. I wrote a considerable critique for Photography as Art but it got deleted by some mean-spirited distraction or computer error!

So I'll re do it from scratch!

Anyway, had this been done by a classicist trained in photography, I would have missed out!

Asher

Ray West said:

Just to clarify, my sadness was caused by the comment that Ken had made, concerning that he thought that his image 'was not anything special'. As far as I am concerned, no offence was caused.

A number of new posters misunderstand the comment/critique requirement, which others have mentioned here. It is the way that progress is made, in opf. I am not alone in spending a number of hours in trying to get other folks images right for me, sometimes it helps them on their way to getting it right for them, sometimes not. In turn, they help others. Sometimes a new guy can teach the old hands something, look at things in a different light. However, if the owner of the image states that he does not hold his own work as being worthy of any particular attention, it is not anything special, then I wonder why it is posted.

I saw, in this image, as I know Asher did, and many others, something worth pursuing, to get it into a higher level, maybe. But, you can only help someone who wants to be helped.

So, thanks for popping in, Ken. Maybe if you had read the terms and conditions etc., then you would have been prepared a bit more. I think you will have to look very hard on opf to find a 'wow - nice shot' comment, if that is what you wanted, even in the sports section that rarely happens.

Best wishes,

Ray

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Upon further consideration, I decided to come back here and try this site again because there really is a lot of good things going on here, and I for one am always willing to learn.

I am sorry my words of "not anything special" are bothering to you, I certainly didn't mean them to be.

I take pictures... pictures of things that interest me, pictures of things that I think may interest others, and pictures of things that I think should be shared. I do not, have not, nor do I ever expect to claim that I am actually good at taking pictures... the reason that this particular picture is nothing special is, frankly, because NONE of the pictures that I take are particularly special... I am simply not that good.

I know what special looks like... Cartier-Bresson took special pictures. Adams took special pictures. Robert Frank, Alfred Steiglitz, Julia Margaret Cameron and Timothy O'Sullivan took special pictures.

I can't call my work in any way special because it simply isn't... and I think I am honest enough to realize that.

It was as good of a shot as I could make it considering the skills that I possess, the talent (at whatever level that is) that I have, and the equipment I had on hand. I posted a picture that I don't think is particularly special because that's where I am in my photography... it is, for good or bad, the best I can do with at my current level of skill and experience.

I could have posted other pictures that are, frankly, of about the same quality and skill level. I could have just started offering my opinions... but how in the world would anybody know if my opinions are worth a hill of beans if the reader had never seen any of the photography that I have done?

I wanted to share this picture because I think that it is at least a respectable example of what I was trying to do, because it is of a subject that I thought some of you might be interested in, a amazingly beautiful location that most people have never seen and done in a style that (like it or not, for good or for bad) comes from my heart.

To me, photography is simple... it is absolutely and entirely about the image. I do the best that I can, and I try to learn more to do better in the future.

As far as the "Terms and Conditions" you are referring to... The information I got at sign up was about not making posts that any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-oriented, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violative of any laws. I did read the FAQ before I posted, as well as the TOS (Terms of Service) on the front page... Frankly, I went back and re-read both after seeing your post figuring that I was being silly and missing something... and after doing so I don't really see how I messed up in following either of these two sets of guidelines, since nothing in my post comes anywhere remotely close to violating them.

I will be glad to read any other rules of deportment immediately if you would be so kind as to steer me to them, because I obviously am missing them.

Ken,

The matter of rules is over! Don't sweat it. If we are short of rules, we can try to get some from a secret order. Right now, we're going to manage just being nice and welcoming your work and refreshing lack of pretentiousness!

If you have more of this area it would be great to be able to see what else was there.

Asher

Ken Mitchell said:

Upon further consideration, I decided to come back here and try this site again because there really is a lot of good things going on here, and I for one am always willing to learn.

I am sorry my words of "not anything special" are bothering to you, I certainly didn't mean them to be.

I take pictures... pictures of things that interest me, pictures of things that I think may interest others, and pictures of things that I think should be shared. I do not, have not, nor do I ever expect to claim that I am actually good at taking pictures... the reason that this particular picture is nothing special is, frankly, because NONE of the pictures that I take are particularly special... I am simply not that good.

I know what special looks like... Cartier-Bresson took special pictures. Adams took special pictures. Robert Frank, Alfred Steiglitz, Julia Margaret Cameron and Timothy O'Sullivan took special pictures.

I can't call my work in any way special because it simply isn't... and I think I am honest enough to realize that.
....

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Hi Ken,

Welcome back, I am very glad you've decided to. Stick around, join the discussions and every now and them show us some of your work for C&C. I do that too, and I can tell you that it really helps anyone to learn and improve from serious C&C no matter how accomplished or how novice one might be.

Re. the term "special", I now understand your definition of it. Defined as such, none of my pictures are special either. Or 99% of all the pictures ever posted here are not special. But this doesn't take away the fact that every picture is special to somebody, in one way or another. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" as it were. I, for one, thought that this particular picture of yours is a special one even though you don't think so. Consider, then, being a bit less humble and embrace the idea that some of your not-so-special pictures might be interesting to other people, after all .

Cheers,

Cem

Ken,

What's special or not to you is important of course to you. However, once the world sees your picture, they may hate it or really come looking for more. In developing your own work, it's importance to have a measuring stick for yourself. What did you want to achieve? How far are you in that goal. What other people think is nice and if they pay you even better. However, ultimately, the best work will be done for yourself.

Now you want to sell it? Then somehow other people have to reach out to your work or you have to close the gap to them.

I would like to see more of your pictures on this Island to get an idea of the range of such work. So far, you have my attention.

Asher

I plan on visiting the "introduce yourself" portion of the website when I get the opportunity to talk a bit more about who I am, what I do and why I do it...

I am fairly sure that most people would think I am particularly wonky by some of the equipment choices I make... on the particular outing, for example, I was using a D40, a cheapie kit lens and a $20 polarizer, leaving my D300, (24-70 f/2.8 Nikkor) and B&W polarizer in the hotel room. Setting aside the filter for the moment, I did this because the cheap camera and lens have outstanding image quality & I knew I was going to be hiking all day on broken lava fields... tough going, and one slip can destroy your camera equipment. As far as the polarizer goes, the flaws in the cheap optics of this filter produce some really wild and crazy colors, adding (depending on the subject and shooting conditions, obviously) some bizarre and sometimes unearthly hues and tones which I find interesting.

Here is another image I took about 100 yards past the spot that I shared with the first image, again at Kilauea Iki on the Devastation Trail. The sun is at about 160 degrees behind me on it, as opposed to 90 or so degrees on the last shot.

My goal for this day was to go out and take an entire series of photographs to show the gradual recovery of the environment from an ecological disaster. Specifically, my wife teaches biology at a university, and she wrote a lecture that she needed illustrated. Long term, our goal is to have all of her coursework illustrations with images that we hold the copywrite to. Most of the photos on this day trip are not really going to interest most folks, since they are specifically about illustrating biological recovery.

There are a few that might or might not interest you. Here is one of those.



EDITED TO ADD: the JPEG artifacting around the trees is due to compression for the web, it is not on the original.