Wyoming Plateau - Looking for C&C

redleash

After seeing Dan's nice Orton effect, I thought I'd try another one. This is a shot from my recent trip to CO. It is one piece of a 5-shot pano. I just liked the lines in this one so I thought I'd try it on its own. I did two Orton versions here, with some extra blurring in the foreground grass to make it dreamier. Please let me know if you think either of these work. If you want to see the pano, I will post it too.

Sorry these aren't side-by-side. I keep being told to "post Large" so I did.

Thanks!
Lauren

1.


2. Extra blurring in foreground

thapamd

A simple and beautiful scene, Lauren. I like the Orton effect here and the blurring of the FG in the 2nd. Nice!

dlplumer

thapamd wrote:

A simple and beautiful scene, Lauren. I like the Orton effect here and the blurring of the FG in the 2nd. Nice!

+1

redleash

Thanks to you both!

redleash

Any other comments/suggestions?

dseidman

The Orton Effect looks very nice here in combination with the motion blurred foreground. Both are good but I prefer the second shot.

I have two suggestions for improvement. Although your camera may have been level, the angles on the ridges as well as the edge of the foreground grasses are all angled. As I look at this shot, I keep having to tilt my head to even it out so I'd suggest a little (not too much) clockwise rotation. The other suggestion would be to crop out some of the sky as it's pretty bland and taking too much attention away from the landscape.

redleash

Thanks for the comments, Danny. How does this version look? I went ahead and did a total straight horizon approach--is it too much?

dseidman

Nope, not too much. That looks perfect!

redleash

:-)

Jack'll do

Hi Lauren
this is an interesting effect. Of the first two, I preferred #1 however in both 1&2 the rock formation did not stand out and seemed to be overshadowed by the FG and sky. The cropped, straightened version gives the landscape much more prominence and is thumb

hawkeye978

Lauren,

I like the blurring of the grass in the second photo but it's not standing out to my admittedly older eyes. If you want the blurred grass to be the principle subject you may want to try to enhance the grass to draw the viewers eye. Maybe darken very slightly and add some contrast. If you use Lightroom you can add some clarity and maybe contrast. That might give it some more depth. Another trick might be to try and use a gradient in the front with contrast and/or clarity to draw the viewers eye.

Eia

the tilted horizon doesn't seem to bother me. I like the grass! but I do like your later version with the strait horizon too. I wouldn't know which to choose!

redleash

Thanks for all the comments. I'll play with this some more and post another version or two. I'm glad to see so much interest--thank you, thank you!!!

Lauren