Posted by JL Morris on December 23, 2007
Posted under
Color,
Critiqued,
Landscape
Mono Lake and its Tufas go through a miraculous transformation over a period of one hour. Before the sun has crested the eastern hills they are soft and mysterious. When the light breaks over the horizon they come alive with golden light unmatched except for the red rock formations of the south west desert. By the time the sun has started its ark for the day they have turned an unattractive gray. In the late afternoon after the sun has gone behind the Sierra Mountains in the west you have a brief period of soft moody light.
This illustration appears to be during that soft light. I suspect the photo-artist has done some manipulation of colors in this image, perhaps with camera filters or on the computer. That is not a bad thing. It has given this image and otherworldly atmosphere.
An interesting thing I would like to point out is that the horizon is at the center of the photograph. I feel this graphic works fine with the subject as illustrated when taken with the strong reflection on the water surface. Perhaps a little less sky, but that is not much of a distraction.
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December 24th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
This picture captures, for lack of a better term, “Magic Hour”. That 40 minitue window in the beginning and end of the day where the sky turns all sorts of surreal colors. This is reflected beautifully in this picture. The light purple sky is bouncing off of the lake making an ideal backdrop for the top and bottom of the image. The fading light also gives the tufas a delicious golden brown color.
I figure maybe the left half of the rock on the left of the picture could be cropped out but it really doesn’t need it. Beautiful picutre. National Geographic material.
December 24th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret. This shot was an excercise in “Lunar Light Photography”. It was taken at 8:53 P.M. the first week of November with a full moon! The sun had set almost three hours earlier! The exposure was done using the histogram and varying the time, keeping the aperture @ f8 and an ISO setting of 200, keeping in mind that doubling the time is ‘one stop’, I exposed to the right (~channel 230). There was no manipulation of the color. The full moon is nature’s softbox and gives you fabulous saturated colors and contrast with no specular highlights. Next full moon give lunar light photography a shot.
Bill Debley
January 8th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Incredibly beautiful … love the saturation and strong light aa well as composition here… soothing to the soul ….