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The Way
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The Way

by Harry Lichtman

Gallery: LandscapePosted December 7, 2010242 views9 comments
Finally geting to process my Narrows images from a recent trip to Zion. I found getting the blacks and shadows to appear more natural more difficult than I first expected. Some wonderful light reflected in those dark chambers.

I have considered cropping off some of the bottom rocks to take the rapids out of a central location.

Canon 5D MarkII
17-40L, polarizing filter

Comments

9 comments
Comment posted by Michael J Greene, on December 7, 2010 at 8:25 PM
Excellent job at processing Harry. If you could lighten the darkest parts of the middle of both sides of the walls it would help a little. Awesome work!

Michael
Registered on June 18, 2009, 86 Posts, 2317 Comments
Comment posted by Marc Adamus on December 7, 2010 at 8:27 PM
Yeah, I could see cropping some of the rocks, but it's the part of the image consumed by that large dark space throughout the upper right is what takes up too much space to my eye. I'm not sure there's a better way to crop/present this one.

Ideally, I'd like to go dark to light in a scene like this for an cohesive flow to the comp. The brightness at the bottom does grab the eye a bit. It does give more sense of place too.
Registered on September 17, 2005, 780 Posts, 8091 Comments
Comment posted by Raymond D Smith on December 7, 2010 at 8:37 PM
Harry, The negative space created by the two dark walls is a little much for me. If you could pull some more detail out of the shadows I think it would help. I do like the colour of the rocks up front, it gives the eye something to study, also I like the juxtaposition between the small rocks and the enormous rock walls. Everything else looks tip top, hope this helps.Cheers
Registered on January 22, 2009, 12 Posts, 479 Comments
Comment posted by Harry Lichtman on December 7, 2010 at 8:47 PM
Michael - I did a quick job to open up the shadows a bit - any more and I would probably need to go back to the RAW to limit noise there. Marc, I see how the dark to light keeps the eye moving through the image instead of stalling. I must have been hoping that the water and light sand would pul the eye along!
Registered on September 17, 2010, 304 Posts, 3507 Comments
Comment posted by Arnab Banerjee on December 7, 2010 at 10:27 PM
Nice Harry. I actually like the black, dark area - it helps to highlight the "way". In this digital age, the madness to get all the details in all the areas killing this kind of photogrpahy - lovely shot
Registered on January 3, 2007, 313 Posts, 2270 Comments
Comment posted by Jared Atencio on December 7, 2010 at 10:31 PM
Love the line through this (rocks through stream all the way to the back) but also not a huge fan of the negative space by that wall in the URC. Not sure if you have many options, which is a shame, b/c I like the scene a lot? I do like the repost, but think it's not quite "there", but can't really offer any direction but to maybe shoot again under better conditions.
Registered on June 23, 2009, 21 Posts, 422 Comments
Comment posted by Tony Kuyper on December 8, 2010 at 12:04 AM
I just really like this comp. The dark walls sort of add to the foreboding character of the frame.
Registered on November 1, 2003, 364 Posts, 22328 Comments
Comment posted by Marc Adamus on December 8, 2010 at 12:17 AM
I would add that negative space has always been part of photography when used in complimentary fashion. That at least, is no different today.
Registered on September 17, 2005, 780 Posts, 8091 Comments
Comment posted by Chris Chamberlain on December 9, 2010 at 7:12 PM
Of all the more understated images from here, I like this one a lot.I say understated because it doesn't have the intense orange light on the canyon walls. I like the comp, and the color contrasts. The soft orange light in the back in nice.

Chris
Registered on March 13, 2007, 500 Posts, 8365 Comments