Sunbeams over Saddle on Table Mountain, Cape Town

After the recent "controversy" I will try anything once. This image has already been shown on www.photocritique.net so you can say anything without hurting my ego.


-- Gordon Richardson (gordonr@iafrica.com), August 26, 1999

Answers

I'd like to see a color version of this; I'll bet the sunbeams were brilliant...

-- Scott (bliorg@yahoo.com), August 26, 1999.

I don't think there is enough detail in the rock ledge to hold my interest. Maybe if it was a color shot the sunbeams would have enough radiance to make up for that. (But I prefer color to b&w for nature , so maybe my opinion is biased that way) Maybe it would have been cool if you could have used a lower camera angle and got full silhouettes of the 2 trees.

-- rob dalrymple (robd13@erols.com), August 26, 1999.

For the record: this is a colour image! The extreme brightness range and back lighting of the trees washes out their colours.

The foreground in this busy suburban area is very hard to deal with. This was a quick-shot, and I had little time to move around.


-- Gordon Richardson (gordonr@iafrica.com), August 26, 1999.

Gordon:

This scene must have been breath-taking in person. I like the way the brightest light softens the edge of the ridge line. I also like how the light shafts are separated by the ridge lines higher points. All in all though, the light is just to overpowering. Is this some place you can go back and shoot again with less light? Maybe ten minutes difference, with the sun a bit lower might help. That might also help bring out some of the colors too.

Please, bear in mind Im a newbie so these are the comments of a layman, not yet a photographer.

-- Zane A. Kissling (zkissling@geac.com), August 26, 1999.

Yes the brightness is just too much for me also, even after kicking the saturation way up. I like the effect, but it does not quite work here for me. Here is copy with more saturation....mostly as a test of image loading during an answer.

-- Brian Willis (bwillis@oswego.edu), August 26, 1999.