The Road to Salvation

kdog

Or something like that. :rofl

Does this work?

Eia

The sky is awesome. But what is that on the left just above the green It looks lke a giant water drop? The colors are quite rich!

Richard

Wow, great rays. The water looks a little crunchy on my monitor. I think if it were mine, I'd crop the bottom a bit and go for a pano aspect. Well done.

Jack'll do

I agree with Richard. That background is so gorgeous it deserves a more prominent position in this image. Nice PP Joel

black mamba

Great scene, Joel. Beautiful rays.

I cropped the shot on my screen from the left....just enough to lose the white glob, from the top....down to the beginning of the real light-colored band in the sky, and enough from the right to proportion-out the picture.

I'm still searching for the water Richard commented on. I see a dirt / sandy road.

Tom

Jack'll do

black mamba wrote: »

Great scene, Joel. Beautiful rays.

I cropped the shot on my screen from the left....just enough to lose the white glob, from the top....down to the beginning of the real light-colored band in the sky, and enough from the right to proportion-out the picture.

I'm still searching for the water Richard commented on. I see a dirt / sandy road.

Tom

Hi Tom
I too took it to be water. The crunchy quality makes a lot more sense if it's a dirt road.

Richard

Jack'll do wrote: »

Hi Tom
I too took it to be water. The crunchy quality makes a lot more sense if it's a dirt road.

Silly me. Yeah, the crunchiness does make sense now, but I'm not so sure about the color. Puddles on a dirt road?

angevin1

Liking it overall! Great view and Sky! Tell me that color ( purple) wasn't there?

kdog

Thanks for the comments, folks! Richard, that's exactly what it is -- a wet dirt road. The dirt is whitish in color, probably due to mineral content, but I make no claim that the color is accurate.

I took the shot on Friday evening just outside of Bakersfield coming back from the Carrizo Plain. This is one of those deals where you look in the rear view mirror and see something so amazing that you frantically start looking for a place to pull over. In this case it happened to be this dirt road, so I used it in the shot. It had been showing rain on and off all day, so things were wet. I snapped a quit bracketed set to HDR and continued on my way.

Eia, I believe the white plume is steam or smoke from the stack from an oil refinery or possibly oil plant. Simple to clone out, but I decided to leave it in because it's just weird enough to add more interest.

Tom, I'm curious about your crop, but can't quite envision it. Is this along the lines you had in mind?



Feel free to post your own version if you like as I'm genuinely curious what you have in mind.

Cheers,
-joel

black mamba

Hey Joel,

You pretty much got it the way I did. You cropped the sky exactly like I did. I pulled the left side in a little more than you did and gave that additional " space " over to the right side. In other words, the road is moved over more to the left so that you see the entire portion of that section of the road that flairs out to the right. It's all a matter of taste, I suppose, but I happen to like the cropped version more.

It is a scene that I'm sure would have stopped me as well. Great capture.

Tom

kdog

Thanks again, Tom! I see what you mean now. You're right, that pretty much dials it in. Thanks again.

-joel

kdog

angevin1 wrote: »

Liking it overall! Great view and Sky! Tell me that color ( purple) wasn't there?

Hey Tom, I missed this previously. There is some purple in the shot as captured I think and probably got enhanced by the HDR process and using a stronger black point which I tend to do.

Here are the three contributing frames of this shot.

Art Scott

Really nice shot and YES IT WORKS

Eia wrote: »

The sky is awesome. But what is that on the left just above the green It looks lke a giant water drop? The colors are quite rich!

That is a ghost of an ATOMIC TEST BOMB...... :D:D:D

Azzaro

Great title, Joel ..... The road doesn't look overly used, maybe some of us are not going to make it.....:D

I like it .... the tonal contrast is a little higher than I would have done.....but still a great shot......gary

kdog

Art Scott wrote: »

Really nice shot and YES IT WORKS




That is a ghost of an ATOMIC TEST BOMB...... :D:D:D

Thanks, Art! Yeah, the plume does have a kind of a post-apocalyptic thing going on. Exactly!

kdog

Azzaro wrote: »

Great title, Joel ..... The road doesn't look overly used, maybe some of us are not going to make it.....:D

I like it .... the tonal contrast is a little higher than I would have done.....but still a great shot......gary

Thanks, Gary. So true about the road being rarely if ever used. In fact, I almost called this "The Seldom Used Road to Salvation" and decided it was a little long.

rwells

I too really like the cropped version!

Nice job Joel

kdog

rwells wrote: »

I too really like the cropped version!

Nice job Joel

Thanks, Randy!

Dogdots

I find this road so fascinating. My eye kept looking at where it disappears and reappears.

As for the crop ... I like the original version, but would of cropped it just under the white opening in the upper center part of the sky.

Nice work

kdog

Dogdots wrote: »

I find this road so fascinating. My eye kept looking at where it disappears and reappears.

As for the crop ... I like the original version, but would of cropped it just under the white opening in the upper center part of the sky.

Nice work

Thanks, Mary! I see what you're saying about reducing some of the upper part of the sky. I'll have to play around with that and see how it looks. I"m pretty pleased with the way it looks cropped. Good thing I have 21M pixels to play with.