Huggins Lookout

This is a hand held 7 shot stitched panorama of the view from Huggins Lookout overlooking the township of Bright in north-east Victoria, Australia during Autumn.

This was on the same trip as the one for my Danny's Lookout panorama in another thread.

Comments and Feedback welcome 🙂

It is a lovely view of a small city nestled amongst the mountains, with lots of interesting detail to study and enjoy, especially the bright colors of the early fall foliage in that nice warm light. It is rather wonderful that we have cameras that we can capture shots handheld that we can stitch into panoramas, but it is no small feat to pull it off this nicely. There is a golden haze that you could reduce or remove if you wanted more clarity, but I quite like it as is. I am of mixed minds about the "bookends" of foliage on the edges. I like the idea of the natural framing but I wish for more rather than the two small slivers. Yet if you cropped it on the right you'd lose some of the area associated with the golden light source. We always have to make those little decisions...

Nice image.

Thank you minniev:-)

When I took the series of shots I had more of the scene on the left and right but it is all thick foliage.

I too struggled a bit experimenting with where to crop the left and right side.

I eventually settled on what I have posted as being what works best for me.

Also, to be honest the image is not sooc.

It is processed from raw using Photoshop Elements + Elements XXL plugin.

Proper editing is a skill set.

I doubt that I have ever posted or printed an image that didn't have some adjustment. That is part of producing a finished photo. There's no awards for SOOC though we all strive to capture the best quality image we can for whatever purpose we intend to use it.

Yes me too, even when I was shooting sooc jpegs only when I first started.

hmmmmm........I know what you are getting at but there are many here who shoot sooc jpegs only and have little interest in editing them.

Let's start with the image. I know the area well, almost every year I spend time up the way a bit at Narlel creek near Corryong. What I like here Danny is the feeling you have captured of the little town snuggling down into the valley. Your shot gives a feeling of scale and the extent of the tree cover.. In the Weekly thread forum last week there was a discussion about the greens of the Australian bush. It's a different green and it's the same green you have here, although with an added glow from the late sun. I'd have picked your shot as Australian every time.
Re. processing. I'm a firm believer in the Ansell Adams' position on this. He saw photography as a three part process and expected photographers to be in control of the three parts. Part 1 is the taking. Part 2 is the processing. Part 3 is the print. In his view a competent photographer takes an image with prior knowledge of how they are going to process and print the result.
While the technology has changed, the basics of the process are the same.
SOOC is at the same level as was the photographer who dropped their film off at the local store and received a little packet of images a few days later. They sometimes got some great shots too.

Thank you Mike :-)

Yes, it's very beautiful there in Autumn.

Regarding processing. I don’t normally think too much about what the final image will look like apart from my default final image is a documentary version.

But in the case where for example I have flowing water and time on my hands I would take multiple photos with the water both 'frozen' and silky smooth and then see which works best in post.

I often make artistic versions from documentary versions where I see potential for it.

It it clear this is early autumn with some autumn colors. It does indeed appear to be a "documentary" shot of a wide angle view from an overlook location. I do not understand the relevance of taking photos of flowing water. I am more than curious, what would constitute an "artistic version"? I would love to see it.

I was replying to Mike's post saying I don't think too much about what the final image will look like when I take a photo. I used the example of a scene with flowing water to show that I would take several shots with both frozen and silky water and then evaluate them in post to see which works best.

This is a quick and simple artistic version of the original. It follows a similar concept of "artistic version" as in my Li Yuan Garden image and Water Colours image.

I would agree. At least the original conveys a sense of place. The "artistic" version just looks overprocessed and fake.

Thank you 🙂

The 'artistic' version in this case was a quick and simple demo of the type of image I would create for that scene in reply to

I spent 5 - 10 minutes maximum simply applying a colour gradient over the original and fiddling with it. It isn't meant to be a final artistic version.

The two images I linked to are more in line with what I mean by artistic versions of my images.

Ditto my reply to AlanSh