Death Valley in December

jdryan3

I recently had the opportunity to traipse thru Death Valley for 9 days, including 5 days with kdog. Second half was overcast and even 'rainy', so I reshot some areas we had blue skies for at the beginning of the week Here are just a couple of shots as I work thru not only all the images, but testing out the Photomatix Pro 4 plug-in for LR.

#1 A little color, a little scale


#2 Rain on the Golf Course


#2: B+W


#3 Sitting on the 'green'


More to come!

kdog

Cool shots, David! I like 1 and 3 the best. Using the car for scale really worked in 1, and the B&W conversion in 3 really makes that sky pop! :wow

Cheers,
-joel

anwmn1

David-

I like the first shot and the car does indeed provide a sense of scale.

The other three in my opinion are pretty dull in color and lacking contrast. Some adjustments to the mid and black points in levels could make a significant difference.

The b&w is just way to dark.

jdryan3

kdog wrote: »

Cool shots, David! I like 1 and 3 the best. Using the car for scale really worked in 1, and the B&W conversion in 3 really makes that sky pop! :wow

Cheers,
-joel

Thanks Joel. I agree on the sky (Photomatix B&W test) but I think Aaron's comment is correct on it being too dark overall, especially in the lower part. I did a gradient adjustment there already to bring it out, but I too noticed on another monitor it seemed muddy.

I may do the same with the sky on the Jeep image. Overcast weather has it's advantages but sometimes pulling out the full dynamic range can be hard.

I do have more to come. I converted about another dozen and was going to upload them 2 nights ago when my external drive hung :bash

AdamK

The first one is amazing! The jeep adds a really good scale to the image.

dlplumer

Very cool thumb

redleash

#1 is the best for me also--the vehicle makes the shot. The texture in the other three shots is interesting but overall they don't really grab my attention. Sounds like you had a fabulous trip regardless--would like to see some more shots as you go through them.

jdryan3

Thanks Dan, Lauren and Adam. More will be coming. I had a case of 'do as I say, not as I do' late last week on backups. But I got it fixed over the weekend and am ready to move forward.