Sespe Creek Gorge

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If you folow the photo.net regular Q&A, this is the image I've been trying to "fix" due to excessive contrast. I ended up doing a lot of digital manipulation just to get the bright areas toned down with detail and to get the dark areas lightened up, again with detail. No one scan could hold the info on the negative, so I did two scans with different levels of neutral density to get info from both areas and then I assembled them, with limited success, as you can see, if you look closely.

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), March 13, 1999

Answers

I am having a very hard time with a subject in this image. I haven't found it to be a very catching abstract either. I would suggest tryiny to shoot this one again if it is at all possible. I think you may be right and it is the high contrast and lack of detail that is giving me trouble. From what I can tell, if the exposure was better, I think I would like the diagonal lines within the frame.

-- James Fazio (triathlete@vt.edu), March 13, 1999.

I expect the exposure is as good as it could be without losing something at one end or the other of the spectrum. It's not bad as an abtract. If you have to spend too much time with photoshop, move on to another image I would say.

-- Mike Green (mgprod@mindspring.com), March 14, 1999.

BTW, I like it.

-- Mike Green (mgprod@mindspring.cm), March 14, 1999.

As a technical demonstration of capturing the subleties of B&W, it's a great image, and a wonderful technique for capturing the range of the original negative.

The constrasts of the soft diagonals and shapes in the water/soil edge versus the more rectangular shapes in the rock formation make it an absorbing image that takes time to absorb. I think some of the rectflections in the foreground might be cropped out to accentuate the shpaes in the soil and rock.

-- Joe Boyd (boydjw@traveller.com), March 14, 1999.


To my eyes, the shadows still need help. Maybe you would have better luck in a real dark room.

-- Larry Korhnak (lvk@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu), March 15, 1999.


Larry,

Does that mean you think it's still too dark?

A real dark room is not an option. I'd just turn it over to a pro, maybe with a print of this as a guide.

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), March 15, 1999.


It's not so much the darkness as the flat muddy grey appearance of the center wedge. The composition of this image (high contrast upper frame, dark wedge, high contrast lower frame reminds me of Ansel Adams' " Winter Sunrise" and "Mount McKinley and Wonder Lake". However, both have dark tops and bottoms to help frame and contain the highlights. These prints were examples in his book "The Print". I enjoyed reading "The Print" because it was comforting to see that even the master occasionally got crappy negatives. More importantly it was inspirational to see how with some skilled darkroom effort that "all's well that ends well".

-- Larry Korhnak (lvk@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu), March 15, 1999.

Thanks, Larry, that's a lot more helpful for me. I'll go back and see what I can do with the dark gravel bar and the right-side boulders.

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), March 16, 1999.


I really like what you are doing here and you have good vision. My only suggetion is that you have one too many elements in here and should crop out the foreground reflection up to the sandbar. To me this would provide a better balanced shot and puts the emphasis squarley on the strong lines of the rocks and sandbar. It might brighten up the dark sandbar since being sandwiched between two white areas is a bit much. Good eye.

-- Andy Laycock (agl@intergate.bc.ca), March 18, 1999.

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