Break through - and reveal

[habakuk]

cheers
®

[eob]

Very moody landscape. I like the contrast between dark areas of clouds and breaks between them showing clear blue spot in the sky. Same goes for the land.

[habakuk]

Thank you.

cheers
®

[eob]

Sorry for a very laconic comment above. That was just before my departure, so I was in a rush.

I just want to add that the lighting is what makes this image interesting. It sets the ominous mood. Dark clouds block off the light and kill the color in both sky and ground. But the little clearing in the clouds lets some light and color in, giving a promise of life-giving rays from heavens. And I think the static, classic composition supports that message as well by balancing out the heavy burden of clouds...

[habakuk]

The short answer was by no means a hint to a dislike of your reply... really.

I'm not sure how easy it is for the eye of a viewer to connect the bright spot on the ground with the whole in the clouds. I have some other (old) shots that work much easier in this respect. What I liked here is the simplicity and unspectacular landscape turned into something much more interesting just by the contrasts on the ground. And the clouds really are here to explain the differences in the brightness on the ground. Depending on the screen, and I've looked at the shot on a variety of them, I feel like I should have lightened up the darkest tree rows a bit.

cheers
®

[eob]

Well, I think the lights and the shadows look pretty natural (at least on my Apple Cinema monitor). Even if they are not 100% natural, you've got the effect that seems right for the intended purpose. I wouldn't change the overall balance, but perhaps lightening up trees a bit wouldn't hurt, either...

[habakuk]

Just look at the same shot in daylight... I usually work on the pictures in late hours and look at them on my calibrated 23" Apple screen, but when I look at them on the other 23" Apple screen, in a bright surrounding at work, then they look a bit too dark. Probably nothing we can do against it.

BTW: do you know any easy to adopt way of helping viewers to adjust their monitor to display our shots as standarized as a uncalibrated monitor can? I've seen various simple helps e.g. in Myst game where a grey scale is displayed so you can adust the monitors brightness and contrast to fit the intended way for the game. If we could do something similar here, that would be really cool. In the library section... a few default pictures to adjust the brightness and color temperature...

cheers
®

[eob]

I usually work on the pictures in late hours and look at them on my calibrated 23" Apple screen, but when I look at them on the other 23" Apple screen, in a bright surrounding at work, then they look a bit too dark. Probably nothing we can do against it.

BTW: do you know any easy to adopt way of helping viewers to adjust their monitor to display our shots as standarized as a uncalibrated monitor can?

Well, seeing differently in different lighting conditions is completely normal. That's why we calibrate our monitors to specific conditions.

There's a multitude of ways to do basic calibration (at least on the Mac platform - I am not familiar with the PC at all).

Just like in case of reading the rules, people are too lazy to do anything about calibrating their monitors, unless something forces them to do that. I agree that creating some kind of a compilation on the importance of calibrating/profiling, including tips, test images and links to the info on the net would be very useful. Although it won't be easy because even for motivated photographers that is not always an easy subject to grasp and to implement.

[Ernest]

I should make HDR of that picture, to make below part more lighten, sky is perfect, but lower part (ground) too dark, in my opinion. I like the crop!
Regards, Ernest

[habakuk]

Thank you, Ernest. I think a HDR would kill the entire atmosphere here...

cheers
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[ilchkai]

great shot! the square crop works really well here - forceses my eye to travel over the picture in an almost circular motion - literally swinging over the ground into the sky - from right to left. the light line, just above your signature helps to create that movement. i thinks that the colours ae spot on, accentuating (a) the stormy mood, and (b) the sun drenched bit of hill on the left. there is just one bright spot (on the left, half way up the hill, left of one of the houses, in the trees) which i find distracting.

thanks for sharing

kai

[ilchkai]

... as to the simple calibration feature, i have seen a greyscale* running along the bottom of every page in other fora, that works quite well...

*something like that



possibly including a thread in the welcome section with various calibration images would be an idea

[87thecut]

i dreem one day ill do one lyk that, great pic

[habakuk]

Thanks for the comment - and the example calibration bar. Yep, I feel like we should provide a few of these measures to help people setup their screen in a way that we all see the posted pictures as similar as we can get with reasonable work. I'll have a look at this.

cheers
®

[eob]

Pardon me for digging up an old thread, but I felt compelled to say that after a year of looking at various landscape photos in our forum, I think this one is the best.

And looking with fresh eyes, I could stand a little more brightness in the image (not too much, though, because that would kill the mood).