Death Valley Curves

[Adhika Lie]

Continuing on the sand dunes streak...

Another one from the Mesquite Flat: Not exactly my favorite sand dunes in the park, but the most feasible one on this particular visit (we were mainly there for the superbloom). This is a long term personal project of mine involving geometry in nature.

This was shot at 200mm, f/16, 1/25. Processing involves the normal stuff on LR including B&W conversion and then low opacity white paint from the top left. This is cropped from the top to get the 16:9 ratio, otherwise pretty much as is.

[Diane Miller]

Very nice minimalism. The ripples lead the eye to the swirls, and the understated high key treatment there makes them more interesting. Contrary to the usual case where the eye wants to go to the higher-contrast areas. Well done!

[Glennie Passier]

This is great Adhika. Love the B&W. Unusual and creative. A very nice project you have to travel through.

Hope to see more soon!

[Adhika Lie]

Thanks so much Diane & Glennie! I am not really looking for the content for this project per se, only when I chanced upon them. And when I do get them, it makes me very happy. :D

[Andrew McLachlan]

I like this composition quite a bit Adhika and the swirls in the upper right are very interesting...for my tastes I would prefer to see the brightest areas of the comp a little bit darker, which would also yeild a bit more detail in the swirling pattern of the dune. Nicely done!

[Douglas Bolt]

Interesting image with graceful curves. I wonder if some large, sharp grain added to the images would reduce the OOF look towards the top if the frame and make the lighter sand appear to just fade away to infinity rather than simply look OOF.

[Adhika Lie]

Thanks Andrew & Douglas. Good suggestions on the OOF-ness of the top part. I will keep that in mind in the next shoot! :)

[Douglas Bolt]

quickie to illustrate the grain effect.

[Adhika Lie]

Doug, thanks for this edit. Hmm, for some reasons, it doesn't work for me. Perhaps because this is not quite how I vision this scene. But, that's definitely a good edit. If you don't mind my asking, how did you add the texture to the UL corner?

[Don Lacy]

I really like the flow and simple composition of this one Adhika but I do wish for a bit more detail in upper lift corner

[Douglas Bolt]

Doug, thanks for this edit. Hmm, for some reasons, it doesn't work for me. Perhaps because this is not quite how I vision this scene. But, that's definitely a good edit. If you don't mind my asking, how did you add the texture to the UL corner?

I just added some grain with ACR-Fx, plus a little vignette with ACR-Fx.