Elephant Tusk

[Jeff Parker]

View of Elephant Tusk in Big Bend National Park
Canon 7D
1/100 sec
f 9
ISO 400
Lens: EF28-135mm @ 70mm

[Robert Amoruso]

Jeff,

Pleasing image design - good using of diagonals in the scene to create dynamic tension.

I would run a round of local contrast enhancement on this to make it sing and remove some of the BG atmospheric haze (see this link http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/20434-Image-Contrast-and-Tonal-Range-Tweaks-Part-1-by-Robert-Amoruso).

On the composition, if adding more to the bottom of the frame did not create other issues, not cropping the far left plant's base would be preferable. I would also suggest and alternate composition would have been to move around and create a diagonal juxtaposition with the peak and the large plant on the right.

[Rachel Hollander]

Jeff - I like the inclusion of the fg plants for that bit of green and agree with Robert about the nice diagonals and about the haze. I am sure following his suggestions will improve an already very nice image.

TFS,
Rachel

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Jeff, a pleasing image. I really like the cacti in this comp. I like the diagonal flow of the plant life here. I too wish for the base of the plant on the left. Robert's suggestions will take this one up a notch. Nice work!

[Arthur Morris]

I like the soft light and the haze look. And the detail in the foreground stuff. Excellent and valid suggestions on the lower left Ocotillo; no can cut the bottom of the plant off :e3 Plus, I wanna see more of that rock wall. Should the base of the mountains be level???

[Jeff Parker]

I like the soft light and the haze look. And the detail in the foreground stuff. Excellent and valid suggestions on the lower left Ocotillo; no can cut the bottom of the plant off :e3 Plus, I wanna see more of that rock wall. Should the base of the mountains be level???

Dang! Landscapes are hard:eek3: I didn't even notice the base of the ocotillo on the left was cut off. The slope is accurate. I'm pretty careful to level things at capture and all the images from several different spots have the same slope.

[dankearl]

The photo is nice, but does seem to lack contrast. Easy fix.
My impression is also that it needs leveling, even though it may be technically level, if the perception
is that it is not, I would try it and see what it looks like. Another easy fix to a nice scene.

[Arthur Morris]

Dang! Landscapes are hard:eek3: I didn't even notice the base of the ocotillo on the left was cut off. The slope is accurate. I'm pretty careful to level things at capture and all the images from several different spots have the same slope.

I am still trying to understand how the base of the mountains are not at all level.... Am I wrong in assuming that they would be perfectly level???

[Ron Sprunger]

Quite a few of our ranges in the west are not level. I think it depends on whether the "plain" from which they rise is an ancient lake bed or an alluvial slope. This has the look of the latter to me. The wall is more likely to be level than the base of the range, though strata like that can tilt as well:t3

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for that info Ron; it is news to this Florida flat-boy originally from NYC :).