Well, the leaf images were sure a lot of fun, and thanks so much for the comments and recommendations regarding them, but it does feel good to get back to doing a sandstone picture. This image was taken in the company of
Steffen and
Isabel Synnatschke, two very good friends. They have a remarkable ability to locate and photograph some extremely interesting places.
I find this a fascinating piece of sandstone. My understanding is that these colors are imparted to the stone after it's lithified (turned to stone). Ground water carries chemical oxides which seep through the rock and deposit in small amounts to create the red and yellow hues. Afterwards, a reducing chemical flows through the same rock, dissolving the oxides and bleaching it white. There is an obvious flow here that seems associated with the shape of the small hill, but I suppose it's just coincidental that erosion revealed it in this manner. Still, I think it's pretty interesting.
The image is a blend of three exposures -2,0,+2 with the widest focal lengyh of my lens. In addition to blending the light, there is a significant effort to alter color balance in various parts of the scene. The sky is pretty much the way it was shot, but the rocks were warmed considerably because they were in shadow under an open sky, and were very blue in the exposure.
I'll be honest and say that I think it's hard to figure out the right balance of light and color when engineering a picture like this. There are lots of combos and they all seem to be stretching to some degree. Find the "just right" settings seems a bit elusive. Your thoughts and suggestion would as always be appreciated. (Repost below taking good suggestion into account.)
5D2, 28-200.
Comments
43 commentsi really like the texture in FG it looks like a geography maps
Hamed
The rock in the foreground is stunning!
D&L
Guy
Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, WI
Looks like an ice cream blob melting. The blues and colors in the sky just mesh perfectly with the array of colorful shapes below.
Wonderful job
Thanks for sharing
I got your email
Busy week, Ill send ya one back today
*Edit*
The repost just appeared while I was writing. This version looks perfect!
Oh, and I do have to emphasize that this is Steffen Synnatschke's "find." He hiked me right to this place. He and Isa are explorers and have an uncanny sense for finding incredible places to photograph, as you can tell from their websites. I'm encouraging them to write an e-guide to share their wealth of information.
Looks pretty good--cool subject and nice conditions. My only thought off the top of my head is that the fg colors seem to rob the sky of some of its impact--the rocks are more colorful than the clouds. Just an observation.
I like your much better then mine thanks to that great sky!
- Dan.
Chris
On my monitor it looks great and not at all out of the realm of natural.
I know how even well calibrated monitors vary in their representation of color, luminance, sharpness and luminosity, so I very much hesitate at make any mention here, but the blues in your left corner cloud may be a very small tad too strong for my personal taste. But, after doing a lot of color management study and practice this last year, I have come to believe we are never really looking at the same thing anyway!
The brightness level of the sky seems right to me, although when you darkened the fg a tad it appeared to even more anchor the image.
unique + colorful subject
Michael