Taken after a long car journey and bit of a hike.
This is the shore of Loch Arklet in the Trossachs and is a reservoir and therefore access is restricted. I`m not sure if I should have been where I was but after the effort I put in to get there, it would have taken a bulldozer to shift me !
I doubt if this will finish anywhere near the top shots as the subject matter (sunset)is pretty commonly used. However,I tried to catch the point where the sun went down behind the mountains and shone horizontally across the peaks.This had to be balanced with keeping some detail in the foreground which meant a fair bit more work than I usually put in.
It would be nice if voters took time to study the pic and the finer points within..but given the average time spent in voting..I doubt if many will.
Statistics
Place: 38 out of 69 Avg (all users): 6.6263 Avg (commenters): 7.0816 Avg (participants): 6.5536 Avg (non-participants): 6.6382 Views since voting: 1389 Views during voting: 777 Votes: 396 Comments: 54 Favorites: 3 (view)
Ed, thanks for the kind words, I have actually put more work into this shot than any other that I`ve submitted.(Both prior to and after taking the shot)
I`m not at all bothered by my finishing place..as I said in my write up..I didn`t expect to finish anywhere near the top.
However, I am delighted that far more people than I expected,took time to look at the pic and appreciate what I was trying to achieve.
Because of the geography of the place and the restrictions I couldn`t include paths or features which would lead you into the pic..so I hunted for a bit foreground that would echo the shape of the undulating mountains in the backgound and went for a horizontal "thirds" split.
I also wanted to keep tones exactly as I saw them..which meant a lot of manipulation to darken some areas and lighten others.
The only part I was unhappy with was the foreground which was naturally underexposed and therefore aquired a graininess when I restored it to a "real life" setting. However, I felt it was important to have the foreground brighter with tone and detail getting dimmer as it receded.The result is as near to what I saw as I could have achieved.
To the people who wanted a person or boat or were looking for a bit more saturation...my apologies, I can understand that these are personal preferences but they would have ruined the feel of what I was trying to create in my minds eye but I very much appreciate the input from all.
I really thought this would be a contender, Gordon. To finish below half-way is a poor reflection on the homogenisation of the voting public these days - and your refusal to pander to them is appreciated in this quarter at least.
Great soft light. I originally though this could use more saturatiuon, but after looking at this several times I think it is great the way it is. Well done.
gorgeous. isn't it amazing how you can still capture the beauty of the day, even when the sky isn't that dramatic? great job. i'll enjoy looking at this for awhile.
The volumetric lighting is very nice and very subtle. However, I see lots of noise in the shadow area just below the stream of light and maybe even in the grassy area. Or maybe it was just overprocessed in Neat Image. 5
I really like this shot and really want to like ti more but the soft focus just doesn't seem to work for me. There seems to be a lot of grain in the grass and the line of light on the mountains is just a little too straight to me, can't quite explain it, almost too perfect and if that is the way you caught it, GOOD JOB! But the lack of contrast hurts this shot for me. A 7
Beautiful scene taken at the perfect time of day. The muted colors create such a calming effect. I could look at this for some time without tiring of it.
This is just such a wonderful landscape with beautiful muted colors and really interesting looking atomospheric perspective that gives a sense of distance. Very peaceful scene. Especially love the calm and reflection of the water. It has a surreal quality about it. 10
Brilliant shot!! So many different things to look at here!
The silhouette of the mountains, the beams of light coming from the sun, the reflections in the calm water, the different tones in the grass are all brilliant! The exposure is perfect; the lighter area on the RHS (the reflection of the sun) is brilliant. Very good shot here, full marks! 10
This is just too mystical and magical to be absorbed in one glance. It is the kind of image that can hang in a room to give it ambience, peace and serenity. Bumping up.
Mmm...very nice shot. I was hoping for either a little more brightness or darkness in the foreground... I'd like to either see the details or not see them at all. As it stands, I can kinda make some out, so I spend alot of time trying to decipher the details when I should just be eyeing the reflections... The water is beautiful, btw. The bright light above is like an aura, the shifts in color very obvious. Lovely! Thank you!
wow this is an amazing photo, i love the soft tones on the grass and the effect of the light over the image of the mountains!
there is really nothing that i would change in this image and the only thing possibly is probably softening the focus a tad more but imho that wouldnt be a good idea so as the photo stands i believe its the best it can be and i highly congratulate you on that...
I loved to open the tent in the morning and see this. Of course the light would be from the other direction. Nicely done. It has a nice soft, calming feel.
Nice soft light, very peaceful atmosphere. The grass in the foreground could do with a lillte desaturation in my opinion, it has much more color than the rest of the scene.
As far as quality of light goes - this has been taken at a nice time of day so full marks on that front.
That aside I feel with a little bit more thought one could have made this quite good. I really like to see people use some foreground element to give their landscapes depth but you have decided against this here. Even by using a path or natural trail can add some depth but here this seems to have been neglected.
Nice sunset, but I can't work out why you have such bad jpeg artifacting for a 120kb file. It's all over the shot, and the texture of the foreground grass looks really strange. It looks like something in PS has gone a bit wrong. I can't help thinking that something a little more striking could have been achieved with this view and light. The sky seems a tad overexposed. 7
I like the photo a lot. What keeps it from getting a 9 or 10 from me is that I expected quite a wow factor from those in the master's challenge. I like the photo and I gave you an 8. Nice texture on the water and good colors.
I like the softness of the grass and the scene overall. It gives the feeling that this could be an oil painting as well as a photograph. The positioning of the sun (ie, the timing of the shot) is very well done.
I like this. The misty feel is good, although I can't help feeling that there needs to be some kind of object in the photo, just to add a little extra element. 7
The picture is nice but the grass seems a little dark and grainy. Also, I'm not too fond of the pale yellow color in the sky, though I like the difference between the sky and the reflection in the Loch. 6
Good capture of the evening light, though the colors seem very muted. The haze across the loch is impressive, though, and lends a dreamlike mystery to the shot.
I'd like to see a bit more sharpness & emphasis on the foreground - perhaps by shooting from a lower point of view... Just enough to have it lead your eye outward rather than be skipped over entirely.
Pretty landscape and nice use of light. To me it lacks something in terms of pulling me into it, perhaps needs a focal point. Peaceful though. 7 (//www.dpchallenge.com/forum.php?action=read&FORUM_THREAD_ID=129433)
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