Spiked Sunrise + Repost

Very nice work, Peter. I like the simple composition but the light is obviously the star of the show. That red glow is superb. Kudos for another original composition from this location.

Beautiful earthy tone to this Peter. Nice composition and I really like the simplicity here. Very nice indeed.

Looks so artistic ! Composition and presentation is great !

Nice and simple composition. I like the way the cactus and the mound of rocks compliment each other, plus sweet light.

I love close up compositions like this one, especially with such fearsome looking cacti!
The light and landscape are also quite beautiful. My one nit is with the amount of Orton that you've been using with your work lately.
I think that it's a bit too heavy handed and obvious. Backing off just a bit and/or using it more selectively would really be an asset, IMO.

Thanks everyone!

John, I've been using almost the exact Orton settings for all of my work. This one I made the effect stronger in the sky and pulled back a bit on the landscape. It was windy the entire time I was here which made the area quite dusty and sorta made things a little soft to begin with. I'll try to hold off a bit more in the future though.

Absolutely beautiful. Great subject, composition and lovely, lovely light.

Nice shot man. I don't think the overall highlight glow is too much. It is a taste thing IMO. Some may like it some not... I do think the upper 1/2 of the image could be reduced slightly in saturation and still sing and maybe the indications of the Highlight glow on the ridgeline reduced. That is just my 2 cents.

Great cacti portrait. Like the composition including the background rocks, but glow effect didn't translate well to the web - looks like a bit of halo.

I like this a lot but the strong overall redness seems the weak link to me. Wonder about trying to bring out some of the other colours in the scene, such as the hints of blue in the sky and the greens in the cacti.

Hi, I like a lot the composition.. but I find it a little bit to red (on my screen). Incredible sharpness

Peter,

Just simple and stunning. Heavy handed comments should be taken with a minute grain of salt.
Keep doing it the way you have

Here is a repost with the warm colors toned down.

I really like both of the versions posted and, you guessed it, might prefer something in between...perhaps weighted a bit more toward the original post. The second version doesn't have quite the same visual impact. Usually such a strong element in the immediate foreground doesn't work well for me, but I think this composition is superb.

In all candor I'm with John on the use of the Orton effect. It's not my thing and I find it a bit strong here. That said, it may render completely differently in print than it does in a web resolution image, so it's up to your judgment and taste.

"Heavy handed comments should be taken with a minute grain of salt."

Nonsense. How else will we learn?
Your repost is much better! The truer blue skies especially complement the wonderful light. Like Phil, I think that you could reintroduce a bit more saturation to the landscape. I'm glad you take the 'heavy handed comments' to heart. Your work is much better for them!

P.S. Adding '+Repost' or some such to your title might get more viewers for a second round. Glad I returned!

Great shot Peter. I love the color, Orton, and sky darkening. The only thing bad I can say about them is that I can clearly see them, while ideally I guess I wouldn't notice.

Peter,
Nice job with this composition, I like it a lot and really enjoy the second version here. The closeup shows wonderful detail here.

Just a word of caution on these little devils, don't ever back your vehicle into one. There is a cotton-top or clustered barrel cactus in the Alabama Hills with my rear tire imprinted on it. Lost a tire to the darn thing.

I looked at this image a couple of times based more on the subject then anything else. I've shot A LOT of clustered barrel cactus over the years especially in the Alabama Hills area.
I was glad to see the adjustments you've made to the second version here. John was right about making a caption about the repost too, it caught my attention.
Not sure what or how you arrived at the second version but the changes that brought down the red cast made a world of difference IMO. As a long time user of Velvia I know all about red cast images. They can be real eye catchers, but for me personally, I found mine to be too strong and unbelievable. So, I now find toning that down is more appealing to my taste overall.

Thanks Paul, all I did was adjust the red curves layer to reduce the reds, and then adjust the blue curves layer to introduce a little more of the cool tones.

Peter, my preference is for the repost. The red still shows nicely in the cactus needles and boulders. The vignette in the sky gives an unnatural burnt appearance to those colors though. How did you add the vignette?

Thank you Doug, the vignette was done in the RAW conversion. Probably too heavy handed there to begin with.

Fantastic. I like the repost colors best.

Lots of interesting comments above. That's a good thing, because it usually means you have a winner that just needs some tweaking to make almost everyone happy. I much prefer the second version, as Kah noted the other colors sing more there. The Orton seems to be a personal choice. I tend to like it more than many; I like the way it softens sharpening. But, saturation and sharpening are like album covers, it's such a fine line between stupid and clever (Spinal Tap reference).

Re post is fabulous!