Photo of the Month 11/13

Outstanding landscape image Robert ! The DOF and tones are spot on

This is a pleasing photo, Robert. I especially like how everything is in focus, and the water looks like wavy glass. Well done.

An incredibly mesmerizing image. Would love to know the specs of the shot. Was this a single exposure or a blend of several?

Wow
Beautiful image ,unique cave capture from this location.Great comp.

@John Neukirch...Thanks for the comment...it's a blend of three frames to get the depth of focus...shot @ 14mm at f/16 with a D800e. The far shot was exposed for the sky and the light reflecting off the peak (significantly shorter exposure than the near frames...which were shot with a cPol to enhance the reflections in the near water and the lambent nature of the icicles).

Thanks again for your comment! Robert

Gorgeous framing and light. Very nice!

Well photographed and thoughtfully made. Looks like frostbite photography!

A unique photo. Lots to look at and enjoy.

OH My GOD

What is this

100%

Very nice

Nice original image, if i'm being really picky you might want to lighten up the lower right corner just a little bit.

Beautiful shot Robert, color, comp, and processing are all great. Well done!

amazing! Nice comp. Only thing I question is the blending between the rocks and the water in the FG

Outstanding !!! Gotta love the perspective you created with this.

Viewpoint is extreme, but this works wonderfully well. Excellent comp.

Lovely job framing this …neither too large or small, the ice-surround is sharp, delightful and enchanting. Oh, and the distant peaks…looking to reach towards those ice forms. Superb!

Very unique!

Awesome! Great comp and light!

Robert, having been there when you took this I knew how good it would be if you got the blending down well, and you couldn't have done a better job. Great to finally see the finished image! The water looks pretty surreal, but I like your work there. Overall truly excellent. In the last couple years you've done some of the coolest work with stitched and blended wide perspectives of anyone I can think of.

Fun!! Great work :)

aF

I agree with what's already been said Robert. Definitely an outstanding image! I love the depth and perspective. The only thing that would improve this is if the ice weren't dirty. But that's a real nit pic about someting that's out of your control. Congrats on a wonderful shot!

Love the creativity Robert. The ice adds great interest, in addition to framing the scene well.

Splendid! The composition, the colors and the balance of masses are all excellent. Very original and
fascinating picture. The rock on the right seems to constrain the view, blocking the sight, but at the same time
it provides the proper mass balance... I like it a lot.

Awesome shot Robert. Excellent capture of the light on the icicles. Beautiful processing.

Cool perspective Robert. The blend looks pretty good, one thing I did notice was the odd look of the water where it meets the rocks just below the ice on the left hand side of the image. It doesn't appear to be a long exposure so I'm wondering how the water got the long exposure look here. Also noticed some slight haloing around the ice in the upper right hand corner, not bad but thought I would point it out since I haven't seen it mentioned.

Thank you all for your comments and for all the notes on things that may be improved! A few people noted an apparent strange interplay between the rocks and the water...and I wanted to mention something that I noticed about the water level in Lake Minnewanka (where this image was captured).

First, the "water" around the edge of the rocks is actually a barely submerged sheet of ice that crusted the majority of the shoreline. The water would periodically be just below or above the ice that had formed...and created a bizarre effect that looks a lot like a much longer exposure than was actually taken (when the water just barely covered the ice). You can see the edge of the ice that I'm mentioning about 1/3 of the way up from the bottom of the frame, where it scallops around the reflection of the top of Mt. Girouard.

That said, over the course of any given minute during this shoot, I watched the level of this lake change by well over an inch. The periodicity of the change couldn't have been related to wave action (there wasn't much to speak of). As I know that this lake is used as both a reservoir and a feed to a power dam, I wonder if that has something to do with it.

I have to mention that I'd never spent that much time staring that closely at the level of a lake. Has anyone ever seen this...or noticed it? Perhaps it's more common than I know for lake levels to vary by more than an inch...but I can tell you that it was surprising to both me and to the front end of the 14-24! Minnewanka is a relatively large lake...so that kind of level change seemed significant to me.

In any case, what you're seeing is the blend of two images taken with two different water levels (difference is about an inch). There were many ways this could have been accomplished in pp...but the approach that I took yielded an intentionally surreal look to the rocks that appears to mimic a much longer exposure than was used.

Again, a sincere thanks to all who provided comment! It's been a while since I've been on here...and it's good to be back.

A very beautiful image Robert. Certainly not a well photographed spot, which makes this one stand out. I agree with others with the color tones and comp being spot on. And I agree with Zack about the slight haloing around the icicle on the very top right. In a big print you may not notice it as much but the NPN web compression sort of emphasizes it.

Simply gorgeous

Finding an area where I can copy this conposition is now near the top of my photo bucket list. I keep wanting to go back and look at this over and over. Spellbinding photography......inspirational.

Stunning image and great thinking out of the box. Beautifully processed also. Just great.

Excellent Robert! A beautiful capture and excellent composition. I would have never guessed this was a mini-cave. The light is extraordinary.

a photo that you can't forget. well done

That hardly looks real! Like a dream painting! So nice!

The framing and mood is simply outstanding!

huh--well this wont be the first time i disgree with the crowd I thought id love this from the thumb, but the problem is for me the dirt in the ice clashes with the pristine beauty behind. I know it's next to impossible to find clean ice at times but hey that's what makes landscpe photography a challenge. The obvious halo around the icicles (see urhc for the obvious part, but its pretty noticeable all the way down) doesnt help. Honestly, i think this would haver been considerably stronger without the fg ice--the bg scene is strong enough here so no need to get fancy IMO.
OK--i just read some of the other comments qand i see some others noticed the halo--guess it's a matter of perception how 'bad' it is

Thank you all for the comments...and for the critiques. I suppose that a little more work could be expended in the upper right hand corner of this image...but I'll save that for a rainy day.

The creativity and originality here is superb.

Absolutely stunning!!

Best landscape image I have seen all year, Robert.
Wow!

Incredible Photograph Robert.