Cem_Usakligil
Well-known member
... as seen from the Glacier Point, Yosemite National Park.
Cheers,
Cheers,
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The Half Dome & the Illouette Falls at sunset...
- Thread starter Cem_Usakligil
- Start date
Nathaniel Alpert
Member
May I be the first to congratulate you on this loverly image. How about some technical details. Is this a pano?
Best,
-Nat
Best,
-Nat
Mike Spinak
pro member
Cem,
Nice shot.
Yosemite Falls is not in your picture, but Ilouette falls is on the right side of your picture, amidst the trees.
Nice shot.
Yosemite Falls is not in your picture, but Ilouette falls is on the right side of your picture, amidst the trees.
Cem_Usakligil
Well-known member
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the correction, I knew that there was something wrong with my assumption that they were the Yosemite falls. The place seemed all wrong to start with. Call it a beginner's mistake ;-)
Cheers,
Cem_Usakligil
Well-known member
Hi Nathaniel,
Thanks for the very kind comments, I am not sure whether I deserve them myself. You see, I am a bit divided about this image. On the one hand, I like it a lot. On the other hand, I am afraid that it is a cliche and worth nothing.
It is not a pano, it was taken with a 17-40 lens at 17mm position on my crop body 40D. ISO800, f5.6, 1/200 sec. I have taken +/-2 EV bracketed shots to do HDR, but it did not turn out to be as good as this one which is the 0 EV version converted using Lightroom; no other processing was done in PS. I have cropped the sky a bit so that it looks like a pano. It was handheld, BTW.
I have to consider whether there is potential in this image to pursue further refinement in PP.
Cheers,
Cem_Usakligil
Well-known member
Another one of the Illouette Falls
Here is another shot of those falls. The golden rays of the setting sun has set the pine tree afire whereas the falls are enjoying the cool of the shadows.
Cheers,
Here is another shot of those falls. The golden rays of the setting sun has set the pine tree afire whereas the falls are enjoying the cool of the shadows.
Cheers,
Cem_Usakligil
Well-known member
And the B&W variation ...
... of the same theme. Well, I had to have a go at a B&W of the Half Dome, hadn't I? ;-)
Cheers,
... of the same theme. Well, I had to have a go at a B&W of the Half Dome, hadn't I? ;-)
Cheers,
Kathy Rappaport
pro member
Love the golden tone
Love the golden tone of the setting sun, aided of course by a few flames in No California....well captured.
Love the golden tone of the setting sun, aided of course by a few flames in No California....well captured.
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Color is the Deceiver of Men!
Hi Cem,
I have not as yet visited this great scene. It's so monumental it's not easy to get something right, just out of the camera. The great masters generally did not manage that and may have spent weeks refining that one image.
Also you have not lived the changing light for one week! so its a great challenge on vacation to be able to do anything more than get postcard shots.
Do not be over-seduced by color. Of course we love sunsets and sienna hues. However, these are the more superficial seductions. If you can make it in black and white where we have to rely on contour, contrast, transitions of tone and texture then the picture will be even better in color too.
Don't be put off by the initial difficulty in getting beyond postcard pretty. The way to investigate that harlot is to remove the clothes and see what's there. Color is a deceiver of men! Remove the color and one gets down to the nitty gritty of how the forms exist. Color is just the superficial paint, the raz-ma-taz, the lipstick of the scene.
Just my rant of the moment and a little more. I actually, kinda, sort of, believe it!
Asher
Hi Cem,
I have not as yet visited this great scene. It's so monumental it's not easy to get something right, just out of the camera. The great masters generally did not manage that and may have spent weeks refining that one image.
Also you have not lived the changing light for one week! so its a great challenge on vacation to be able to do anything more than get postcard shots.
Do not be over-seduced by color. Of course we love sunsets and sienna hues. However, these are the more superficial seductions. If you can make it in black and white where we have to rely on contour, contrast, transitions of tone and texture then the picture will be even better in color too.
Don't be put off by the initial difficulty in getting beyond postcard pretty. The way to investigate that harlot is to remove the clothes and see what's there. Color is a deceiver of men! Remove the color and one gets down to the nitty gritty of how the forms exist. Color is just the superficial paint, the raz-ma-taz, the lipstick of the scene.
Just my rant of the moment and a little more. I actually, kinda, sort of, believe it!
Asher
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I have opened up the darker areas and tweaked the contrast.
You will do much better working from the RAW files.
Anyway, you have made a splendid image and I'm so looking forward to more!
Asher
nicolas claris
OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Hi Cem
keep-up the good (excellent!) work in color! ;-)
keep-up the good (excellent!) work in color! ;-)
Cedric MASSOULIER
New member
Hi Cem,
You could see your work as a tribute to Ansel Adams, the great master of Yosemite views... I like very much your B&W picture which approachs AA's ones.
Regards,
Cedric.
Cem_Usakligil
Well-known member
Hi Asher,
Thanks for the suggestion, it is certainly a good idea to play with. Nevertheless, the image was made from the RAW file, I never work with jpg anyway. The dark areas in the picture are like that since it was my intention to have deep shadows which contain endless details but can only be seen if one looks carefully at a good print of some A3+ size or bigger. Otherwise, I have some other exposures of the same scene which can give me a picture much like the one you've tweaked. When I get back home, I'll print various versions and see what is better.
Cheers,
Cem_Usakligil
Well-known member
Hi Cedric,
I am too self conscious to see this even as a tribute to AA. It does not come anyplace near that. BTW, I first saw AA's original Yosemite pictures at an exhibition when I was just 8-9 years old. I was so gobsmacked and overwhelmed that I've decided right there and then to start photographing. So AA was my nudge into the wonderful world of photography. Obviously I must be trying on a subconscious level to make similar pictures.
Thanks for the kind comments,
Cheers,
Cem_Usakligil
Well-known member
Thx Kathy. The golden rays were there for about 20 seconds, when I wanted to take some other pictures with a similar composition they were gone. So I am glad that I could at least get this one.
Cheers,
Cem_Usakligil
Well-known member
Thanks Nicolas. As you know, I am usually in agreement with you re. color vs B&W. But in this case, my youth inspiration (as I wrote to Cedric above) must be clouding my objectivity and perception. I seem to be aspiring to producing something similar to those silver gelatin prints of AA. Of course, it will never happen, shall it? ;-)
Cheers,
Gary Ayala
New member
Okay, I'm the stick in the mud here. #1 ... don't like. It comes close, I appreciate the light/shadow on the rock ... but it just doesn't carry it off. Had the shadow been closer to the base so that most/all of the granite was in light ...now your beginning to have something .... but, (the big but), your image is competing against images from so many great photogs, photogs which actually lived in Yosemite waiting for the perfect light ... that it is hard to judge the image on a stand alone basis.
Additionally, I find that image to lack pop. No blacks, no whites, all-in-all pretty muddy. Punch up the contrast, enhance the light hitting Half Dome ... try darkening the shadow area to increase the tension/drama between dark and light.
I see that image as a start not a finish.
Gary
Additionally, I find that image to lack pop. No blacks, no whites, all-in-all pretty muddy. Punch up the contrast, enhance the light hitting Half Dome ... try darkening the shadow area to increase the tension/drama between dark and light.
I see that image as a start not a finish.
Gary
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Cem,
I agree with Gary, in advance, excuse any sense that I'm any expert, (or perhaps harsh), which I am not!
In the shadow of AA
The subject you have chosen, (whether or not you even mention AA), already brings into mind a set of images, (even if we do not remember or ever have seen this particular location in an AA work), against which your picture is measured and referenced.
The level of B&W photography acumen, skill and expectations is far ahead of that in color. Color is "make up". B&W is naked, the form, light, texture that alone have to work without colored clothes or lipstick kicking in extra reactions from us. B&W work with such landscapes is therefore particularly challenging as we are already hoping for some surprise and fresh interpretation of any scene in a national park.
At the very least, as Gary points out, the viewer is used to finding white whites and black blacks and delicate shades of everything in between. How the photographer dispenses that full rich expanse of gradations of shades ("Zones" in AA terminology of the zone system) is the stanp of that artists creativity.
Asher
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
... of the same theme. Well, I had to have a go at a B&W of the Half Dome, hadn't I? ;-)
Cheers,
In the very dark Shadows
Here you are perhaps on to something far more interesting. This idea of dark forcing the viewer to move in and study the photograph is in line part of the small but important movement of artists to negate color and use slight differences in B&W to get an interviewing process going with the art. I'll write some more on this but the first effort was presented in the 17th Century and many distinguished artists and photographers embraced the absence of color and just black as the medium as a higher form of expression.
In this case then, 100% cut out would help us look into the darkness as if we were next to a print.
So you have an interesting discussion. Thanks!
Asher
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nicolas claris
OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Cem
If I may… on the very 1st photo posted in color, try some midtone contrasts…
You could play around these settings :
So you'll keep your shadows (even lighter) and boost midtones contrasts…
just my 2 cents of Euro, that every one knows is worth than $…
If I may… on the very 1st photo posted in color, try some midtone contrasts…
You could play around these settings :
So you'll keep your shadows (even lighter) and boost midtones contrasts…
just my 2 cents of Euro, that every one knows is worth than $…
Cem_Usakligil
Well-known member
Hi Gary,
Thanks a lot for your valued opinion, this is something I really appreciate.
You see, I am stuck in the middle here. I have other versions in which the whole of the rock is lighted or darker blacks at the base. I did not show them, maybe I should. The reason why this image is like this is that is tries to show info from the base part & the falls without blowing the skies.
I only had 45 minutes to spend atop the Glacier Point. Being already exhausted as a result of a very tiring trip prior to that, I have no recollection of what I have photographed or how. I only remember things when I look at the RAW files on my laptop. Maybe that is it, I am trying to make this particular one be all things at once.
Re. the pop/contrast/what have you, I am shying away from putting too much punch into this picture in order to prevent that it starts to look like a postcard. But maybe I'm wrong.....
Cheers,
Cem_Usakligil
Well-known member
Hi Nicolas,
Thanks for the input, much appreciated. As I wrote to Gary above, I have intentionally did not put too much punch into this one, yet. But since this is a start, I may in the end
Merci,
