Alabama Hills 2nd Repo

I really like the mountain looming over the barren foreground; it's a very nice contrast of environments.  The large rocks in the lower right are a little distracting to me; my eye keeps bouncing off them.  I find it more comfortable if cropped a little off the bottom for that reason.  It's a lovely area and looks like lots of great possibilities to play with the lines of the foreground and background.

I think this is a beautiful image. Ive never been to the Alabama hills but this makes me want to go. It is a simple and visually appealing image to me.

I really like how the rugged FG and the BG mountains compliment one another along with the mystery that cloud; cutting across the mountains; adds. I could see a crop of about half of the FG to make those two boulders on the left not quite as prominent, but that is just my personal preference. This is beautifully done, Marylynne.

Ed

Thanks for the feedback, folks.  I appreciate it, and I'm eager for more.  Here is a flatter crop getting rid of some of the brush and reducing the weight of the foreground boulders on the left.  Let me know if this is an improvement.

Mounts Barnard (center) and Williamson really stand out, here. I like the warm/cool color contrast, but do think the blue in the cloud bank and the mountains could be dialed back just a bit. Compositionally, the large rock in the lower right corner tends to dominate, but you did well with the scene.

Just a bit of trivia: Mount Williamson, 14,379', is considered to be the most massive mountain in the range.
--P

I think that compositionally the rework is better than the originally. Due to the fact that everything other than the sky the image looks flat and I'm not sure it can be processed to have 'punch' and still look natural. Perhaps an image taken just 15 minutes later would have provided some welcome light to the rocks below. 

The repost works much better for me, Marylynne. With that crop those two boulders on the right are not as dominant. Great work.

Ed

Hi Marylynne,

Repost looks better than the original.  I like the contrast of the foreground against the background elements.  Very nice..................Jim

Marylynne,

Excellent landscape from the Alabama Hills.  I agree with the others and I prefer the cropped repost, although I still like the original too. 

You didn't mention, but I'm assuming you used a graduated ND on this? For me these are difficult scenes to use a grad on because there is no straight line.  Just mentioning because it appears that the rocks of the midground are darker than the foreground, when all the light is pretty much the same. Not a big deal really, but thought I would mention.

I do really like the band of clouds across the range and I can see the shimmer of last light hitting the top of the peak. I also like the near/far comp not only for the juxtaposition of the boulders vs. the mountain range, but also the warm/cool color difference.

Lon

Thanks everyone.  I think the new comp works better for me to.  I did not use a grad. filter in the field, but I did apply one in post.  However, it started above the mid-ground rocks. They looked odd to me too (darker and bluer).  I went back to raw and they were darker in the raw file (closer to the range and therefore losing light ever so slightly earlier, maybe less reflected light too?) Anyway, I did a brush job on it because, though natural, I too found it distracting.  I'm glad you mentioned it, Lon.  I was wondering if someone would.
ML