Lone Rock

I can appreciate the difficulties involved in "learning landscape" Bob. Its a tricky subject with elsive nuance. If I were to give you any advice it would be to answer the big question before you grab the camera: Is this subject worth photographing?

What you have here is a competent portrait of a rock, but a rock with no context or sense of place. It might be Novia Scotia. It could be Australia too but nothing in the photograph tells me.

The best landscape photographers, and I'm not one of them, would find something special about this rock and this place and convey their response to it in their photographs. Despite advantages conferred by the digital era, you still need something worth photographing to make a photograph worth the effort.

What works: the colors - the greys and oranges are so organic and appealing
What doesn' t - softness in LLC, over sharpened for web

I hope this helps!

Michael

I like simple comps such as this and the abstract quality they convey. The white sand provides an interesting frame for the turtle-like rock. I like the contrast and tonal control, but agree that it maybe looks a bit over-sharpened for the web.

I'm not sure that I agree with Barry. I sort of like rocks and images that don't necessarily have a context to a certain place. Responding to light is really all that photography needs to be about.

It looks like a flattened turtle! Seriously, a decent attempt at a difficult subject. The light and composition work quite well but probably not an image that would hold my attention too long.

What really works for me here is the contrast and the luminosity. The subject is definitely worth photographing in my opinion and I like the way you did it. The image gives me a strong impression of remoteness and emptiness of the land and with this in mind, I wish there was a bit more space around the rock to strengthen this feeling.