Enlightenment

What an image this is. Wonderful colour and depth. Very crisp image. The colour of the sand combined with the dark sky go very well together.

Very nice. I really like how the sand patterns mimic the rock pattern and somewhat the cloud patterns. Wonderful light. I'm sure this is even more compelling and peaceful on a larger scale.

I'll be brutally honest for you. STUNNING. Lovely texture I adore the tidal drainage patterns but it is the clarity and colour of the image that knocks my socks off.

Leigh, the crisp patterns in the sand and the soft but luminous sky make this shot fantastic. I can envision this shot right next to some of your other nice beach shots with rocks surrounded by smooth sand.

John Zinn

I'm brutally speachless!
This is a wonderful photo! Congratulations!

Leigh, this is a wonderful seascape. I love the color, the veins in the sand, and the light.

Will
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada

Pretty safe to invite people to be brutal with their opinions when you upload something as good as this, huh? ;)

Ok... I think I have one point and that is the GND hard. I think it is visible that you had the edge somewhere on the rocks. I think a soft edge might have been better here.

Apart from that, this is really beautiful! There is so much to look at, with so many different colours that go very well together. The composition puts all the elements together just right. Very well done!

Very nice mixture of colors and textures. The erosion patterns really add a lot of interest.

Very nice, Lee. I'm mostly taken by the sand arteries and wonder if you got something centered around them. Nothing for me to nit, although I do find this a bit wide angle and capturing prhaps too much for my taste.

Arthur, good point about the rock & grad. The shoreline highlights were pretty hot so the grad choice wasn't easy. Unfortunately blended exposures using hi-res scanned 4x5 sheet film just don't work.

Michael, interesting comment about the wide angle. At the time I had no lens between 80 and 150. I've now got the 110XL as well, so I'll check it out next time. What I do like about the wide angle is that it captures light/weather transitions across the sky.

Thanks all.

I thought I recognized this place/ your style. After looking at the opening image on your website I remembered why. I love the dramatic coloring, but by far what makes the image are the patterns in the sand (looks like nerve endings to me).

I'll echo others and say I like this one too.No dramtic colors no golden light,and very pleasing for my eye's to view.If anything at all I would maybe crop a little off the bottom.I have been scrolling it up and down finding ,I like it no more or less, my taste would be just a tad off the bottom.

Thanks for sharing I really do like this one and that's as brutal as it gets.

John, the vignetting is mostly due to the strangely directional lighting that day (this was about 8:30am -- very late for photography in Australian light). There is some light fall-off due to the 80mm lens too. I considered levelling the vignetting out in Photoshop but decided ultimately that it matched the lighting conditions. BTW: the input medium for this shot is as 'raw' as it gets :p

Thomas, I like the 'nerve endings' analogy. Certainly an embarrassing number of photographs have resulted from this beach, but it's more through having an available set of locations to shoot every weekend than through preference!

Thanks all.

It has your style written all over it. Very impressive image.

a wonderful image!!

I can see why Michael and Robert would both prefer a more narrow perspective. When viewing an image of limited size on a computer monitor, there often needs to be emphasis on only the most striking elements to have visual appeal. However, once you enlarge a print to 30 inches or more, it is only then that you can appreciate the grandeur of a wide-angle shot including detail only obtainable with a large format camera. Look at the work of Charles Cramer or Christopher Burkett for good examples this. To see either of thier images on a 40+ inch wide print is truly spectacular. By the way, I think this shot is excellent; the GND brought the sky down just enough for a very balanced tone across the image.