Mystery Valley at Sunset

[Karen Pleasant]

The red rocks of Utah often come alive at sunrise and sunset. On this evening, our American Indian guide took the precarious drive up a steep bluff so we could get the pancake rock formations in the foreground with Monument Valley in the distance. The evening was still with no breeze.

D800 with 24-120 atop a solid tripod using a RRS BH-55 ballhead. Shutter delay was used.

120mm, F11 at 1/15, ISO 200. +0.5 comp

[WillieHall]

well done, you can almost feel the stillness

[Diane Miller]

Nice use of near/far. Good that you got the bush to break the horizon. I wonder about a little more shadow detail.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Very nicely composed Karen...I to would like to see more details in the shadows

[Karen Pleasant]

Thank you so much for the comments. I've adjusted to shadow areas.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Karen - I think the rp is definitely the way to go with more shadow detail but your adjustments have also affected the richness of the color and warmth of the pancake rocks. I would try to apply the adjustments more selectively so as not to effect the other.

TFS,
Rachel

[Karen Pleasant]

Good point, Rachel. I made the adjustments selectively using dodge and burn and curves. But since lightening the shadows reflected an earlier time in the evening with more light in the scene and softer shadows, I didn't adjust saturation but left it as natural.

[Don Lacy]

Very nice view and use of near and far elements in the comp. I agree with adding detail to the shadows but would have done it during the Raw conversion or using a luminosity mask.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Hi Karen
Love the composition and beautiful vista you captured.
The overall file quality just isn't there for me - not sure if it's over processed or just saved at too low quality?

[Karen Pleasant]

Hi Karen
Love the composition and beautiful vista you captured.
The overall file quality just isn't there for me - not sure if it's over processed or just saved at too low quality?

Thank you, Morkel, for commenting. This is a FF raw from the D800. Certainly 24-120 is not as good a lens as my 24-70. I did have to reduce jpg quality quite a bit to meet BPN file size.

Processing:
ACR raw
Tonal Effects in CEP
Curves with sky masked out
Hi Pass about 3 px with sky masked out
very little dodge and burn

[Giovanni Frescura]

I ike a lot your idea and the shooting point . You show us a very different photo of a "famous place " and it is very interesting and work very well!!