African Dawn

[Andrew Aveley]

Before dawn during an african winter after a storm front had passed the evening before. I was confronted with the remnants of a very dark cloud bank moving away from the horizon with with a gap opening for the morning light. Image was underexposed to emphasize orange and red colours from the fiery sunrise and to prevent clipping of the highlighted areas.

Canon 1D MK 3 , 300mm F 2.8 L , F20 , 1/250 , bean bag and panning plate - manual exposure

[Brendan Dozier]

Love the light, color, and quiet simplicity of comp, Andrew. I like where you placed the tree, and your technique of underexposing to bring out color, something that I experiment with as well. Looks great as presented, and probably other crop solutions would work too, like taking some off bottom, or doing more pano style. I think the large amount of space you have does emphasize the vastness of the land. Nice work!

[Robert Amoruso]

Andrew,

I would suggest a pano crop with 1/2 of the black on the bottom cropped off and at the top, above where the sky gets very dark. I like the tree placement and shades of color but feel too much negative space is leading the eye away from the horizon for too long - it is there the majority of the visual interest in this image resides.

Nicely seen image.

[Andrew Aveley]

thanks for the suggestions. My original crop is as suggested ,is a 617 Pano and after hearing your thoughts Robert on why , it makes sense. Brendan , i did make various compositions with the scene at different focal lengths. As for the under exposure , that is why my last image of Etosha seamed so over saturated . By increasing the exposure by half a stop , everything seams balanced but has less of an impact. Thanks for the advice

[Rachel Hollander]

Andrew - beautiful colors and nicely composed. I too would prefer a pano crop eliminating some from the top and bottom.

TFS,
Rachel

[Rene Quenneville]

I love this image. Great colors and contrast. I agree with Robert on the composition.

[Steve Kaluski]

Very evokative Andrew, would like to see the image taking on board Roberts suggestions.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Andrew, lovely colors, agree with the pano crop. You mentioned that you shot various comps of this scene...would love to see them when you have time. I'd love to see a tight comp around the tree. Nice work!

[Jerry van Dijk]

Very nice silhouette and you did great with emphasizing the color with the exposure. I have a slightly different view on the crop. I would not take away to much from the bottom (to keep a sense of landscape) and would crop from the top to balance the top and bottom dark areas. I tried and liked a 9:16 crop like this. It places the crown of the tree on a ROT hotspot.

[Andrew Aveley]

Thanks for the kind words. Great crop jerry :) I have of late been stuck in the 617 crop but this adds and does balance this image ! Andrew , i will work on some of the others and drop you a mail :)