B&W Truchas, NM

[Chris Korman]

Image taken 2 years ago, finally got to process it.



Three image stitch, converted to B&W.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Chris, Welcome to the forum.
In the future please state the shooting specs so we can better analyze your image.
You mentioned a 3 image stitch. Is this stitched together as one would a pano or an HDR.?
The comp is handled well with the cloud becoming the dominant element. I might lighten the foreground tree line a small bit. The sky has a radical tonal shift(could be due to a polarizer) which appears a bit unnatural...

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Chris,
Dave gave some excellent suggestions above. I too prefer my B&W's to have huge tonal ranges.....so tweaking the FG and reducing the darkeness above the clouds will go a long way in taking this up a notch!

[Chris Korman]

Hi Dave & Roman,

Thank you for the critique.
It is a 3 image stitch not an HDR. I tend to think of a pano being "wide angle".

I was going for drama in the sky.

The exposure was 1/320 sec, f/11, ISO 200.

Here's the edited version per your thoughts, though I don't know if the sky is as impact-full.

[Robert Amoruso]

Hi Chris and welcome. Great comments above and the repost is the correct direction to take the image.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Chris, agree with Robert. An improvement...

[Chris Korman]

Thanks everyone for weighing in, I am really grateful to have a place to bounce off images for critique. I've been giving the image a lot of thought in light of comments about where to go with it. I've ended up "splitting the difference" in some regard, I went back to a darker sky, but that gradient you see below in the sky is real. I feel, and it is just my opinion that the lighter sky version has less impact and I hope that perhaps this final image is a happy compromise, though these things are sometimes subjective. Perhaps the composition is not strong so the questions of aesthetics are moot. i.e. fish or cut bait scenario.



I can't speak for Clyde Butcher but he has some images w/ dark sky's like this as well see here.

[Don Lacy]

Hi Chris, I like the third image the best with the dark sky and open upped foreground. I also can not speak for Clyde but I ahve been in his gallery on numerous occasions and his work is stunning in person no web or book image can compare to one of his prints