This shot was taken on a recent trip to the Isle of Skye in Scotland. Dawn breaks at 4:30 am in mid-May and an early start was needed to capture this scene.
I used a Canon 5D and 17-40L lens with Lee 0.6 soft-grad ND filter to balance the bright sky with the foreground.
Post processing in Photoshop, curves and saturation. Croped slightly.
Statistics
Place: 10 out of 394 Avg (all users): 6.8596 Avg (commenters): 8.1667 Avg (participants): 6.7593 Avg (non-participants): 7.0317 Views since voting: 2194 Views during voting: 264 Votes: 171 Comments: 11 Favorites: 2 (view)
First of all congratulations on your top ten finish. It is certainly well deserved!
This is a relatively high contrast scene but the exposure was dealt with quite well. The sun definitely evident in the shot but without creating excessively large highlight areas.
I really like the detail in the sky. It has a very nice vast and "infinite" feel to it. (A lot to do with the choice of lens I think. Makes me ponder whether I should get one).
The composition is pretty good. I like the way the different elements (sky, foreground, island in the distance) all work together to create depth.
The color are rich and well saturated without going overboard
Details are sharp for the most part. A bit of the sunlight has bled into the top of the hill in the distance unfortunately. Nevertheless there is good detail in the rocks and sky.
The challenge: This is such a good image that to be honest, I didn't even give the challenge a second thought until just now. All 4 elements are present. (Though I disagree with the notion that the Sun represents fire but that's a silly opinion and has no bearing at all here)
Overall - Well done. Aside from the hill that I mentioned, I can't see anything obvious to improve this image.
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