On the Precipice

[Rachel Hollander]

I hope you are not bored of Grand Canyon images yet. Hermit's Rest is at the end of the Rim Trail on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Behind the building there is a further loop walk and while walking there I noticed this particular tree. I wanted to isolate it and still show the Canyon behind.

Canon 5D3
70-200 II @ 115mm
1/125
f9
ISO 100
HH, levels, curves, selective color adjustments, LCE, straightened in CCPS.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel

[Don Lacy]

Wonderful location and tree, If this were mine I would crop out the sky at the top of the frame and ad just a bit more room to the right hand side of the frame. I would have also come back in better light I would love to see this tree bathed in warm light.

[Don Railton]

Hi Rachel, Have a crack at a 2 to 3 pixel Gausian blur on the BG and then a spot of dodging on the RHS of the tree... only got one and a half hands at the moment and my keyboard skills are compromised to try it properly but it will lift the isolation but still keep the BG identifiable...

Don

[Don Railton]

PS.. I think Don is right WRT RHS and SKY....

[peter delaney]

Hi Rachel
Lovely photo, have done a quick b&w just to give you another option, difficult to do with a small compressed Jpeg. But hope it gives you another alternative,
I have removed the copyright , apologies , found very distracting and really pulls the eye..if you wish me to remove the photo without copyright I shall do so..

Would have loved a little more room on RHS....

Well done

Peter

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Don, Don and Peter for the suggestions and comments. This one was a bit like threading the needle. There was another tree to the right that I was avoiding but if I changed where I was standing to do so (which I did for some frames) then I had a scraggly shrub below the tree. I also preferred the comp with the point to the left of the tree rather than blocked by the tree or a different bg. This is my way of saying that more room to the rhs was not possible with this comp and I preferred how the elements of the image came together here than in ones with more room to the right. I also had looked at cropping the sky out and at times at the Canyon composed without any sky. I found that the ones without the sky and as a result without the rim lost the sense of place of being at the Canyon, at least IMHO.

Don L. - agree that warm light would be nice but time was limited.

Don R. - wishing you a speedy recovery and I'll take a look at your suggestion of adding blur but it is not something I normally do in pp.

Peter - I really like the b&w and will have to play around with a conversion.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Jerry van Dijk]

Lovely to see a different take on the Grand Canyon! Very creative! I'm also in favor of cropping the sky out, and maybe even a bit more from the top (just below the bright horizontal formation in the far BG). I prefer the color version because of the nice contrast between tree and BG.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Rachel...what an awesome tree...I would like to see the background a touch darker as it appears too washed out to me...but Peter's B&W conversion makes it all work very nicely...I also think the sliver of sky at the top could be cropped so that we are focusing on the tree and the canyon walls beyond...TFS

[Don Hamilton Jr.]

Wow.. awesome comp.. a pity the haze, /harsh light.. robs this image... i know your eye's dynamic range must have been so pleasing seeing this image!!

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Jerry, Andrew and Don.