+++ The Weekly Landscape Thread - #10, 2025.04.11

Sacura volcano eruption

Good job not falling down in that water !
Very good picture as well, not easy as you say, because of the risks, and the difficulty to get everything sharp and to handle the hard light on water, but you did very well and that was worth the effort. The crisp water conveys the power and we can almost hear the noise, the converging lines add to the energy of the scene, and I like the colors, especially in the water. Wish I were there :)

Beautiful sunset and scenery, and you found a fitting foreground to avoid excessive emptiness. Must have been a lovely time indeed !

Nice composition with everything happening on the diagonal between land and sea. I am only slightly disturbed by the large amount of trees/bushes in the bottom right. I don't think you can crop much because they respond to the vast sea, but maybe they could be softened a bit (something like a slight soft focus effect, or decrease clarity a bit) ?

Very nice reflections in that train, and the red color is awesome too. Did you know that this situation would happen, or were you attempting window by chance and reacted in a split second ? I imagine this may not have lasted long !
If I may suggest, the vertical lines seem a bit tilted (trees, tunnel side walls, posts).

Good story, and great picture that fits very well. Could be the ending scene of a western movie :)
The clouds and horizon seem tilted, you could try to correct it, unless it is intentional due to the rider & horse position ?

I get your point about time on the saddle, although mine has two wheels instead of four legs !

It is interesting indeed to have these pictures side by side and I understand your point about the choices a photographer makes, but in this case the scenes were indeed very, very different.
We could almost argue that (I'm deliberately exaggerating), on the contrary, it was indeed the scene difference that forced the compositional choices, at least the orientation (of course in both shots the composition is reinforced by additional elements and careful organisation by the photographers, it's not just the orientation).
I feel that your point would be better illustrated with two contrasting pictures from the same place/time.

The clouds are from ground fog on the Snake river. We are riding mostly due West and the river flows Southwest so it is further away on the left of the frame the the right of the frame. So there was no ability to make the cloud line and the rider plumb. Four legs, two wheels just a matter of picking your poison. 😉

Thank you. It is the natural color of Yosemite's rocky formations. The first snow of the season arrived the next day, and closed Tioga road for the season mid October as it often does, so we were lucky.

Yes, the first snow of the season came the very next day!

And different settings for different camera systems as well! If I were to move from m43 to a full frame camera, I'd have some major adjustments to make in how I choose settings, and how I think about lenses.

Interesting discussion. I tend to think of the settings being dictated by the scene, but probably it's more my own interpretation of the scene. Both are full of gray boulders and mountains, pointy conifers, and water. But the water is different. Fireplace's scene is all about the power and force of the water's movement, while mine is a peaceful end-of-day scene that contains only the mildest hint of any movement at all. The emotion is entirely different. Our framing and our settings emphasize what's already there in the scene and how we felt about it.

Well done, and you were careful enough not to fall in. Had you used a slow shutter and filter, it would have been an entirely different image. This conveys the raw power of the river. Very well balanced choice of framing. Beautiful.

Well, half of it does! It's a cool train picture for sure. That red set against the greens is visually very engaging.

Grand Teton is my favorite of the national parks. Love the way you've caught the mountains peeking through the low clouds.

Really like the diagonal-based composition on this one.

That is an impressive amount of smoke and ash pouring out of the volcano in your image. The smoke cloud also has an interesting texture and rises so high.

Could you hear the erruption from where you were standing ?

No, we did not hear anything.

It was a while before I saw the peaks at the top of the band of clouds. The way I was looking at the scene immediately changed. It was no longer a cowpoke wending his way home, now he was motionless taking in the magical peaks. We were both awestruck by the same magical phenomenon.
I know the darker sky has helped bring out the edges of the peaks but even so, I'm not comfortable with it. Part of the reason is because it's a western scene. When I watched cowboy films in my earliest film going days, I remember not liking the effect when the movie maker had put some kind of filter over the lens so what was clearly a daylight shot, could pretend it was night action. I'm feeling a bit the same here. It is obviously (I think) a daylight moment but it feels too dark. If the subject was less naturalistic, a building maybe, it wouldn't bother me in the same way.
This might be a very personal thing, I tend not to enjoy infra red shots for much the same reason.

I like the diagonal composition as well. It's a little more subtle than working directly from the corners.
The bigger I looked at it, the more I enjoyed it.
The immaculately manicured plots that close to the water's edge and the boat are an unusual combination.

Woodsider79, I sent you a personal message about one of your photos. You may not have seen it up in the top right hand corner of the page. If you haven't seen it, could you check it please.

The issue in the Western US has become wildland fire. This was July of 2023 when there were massive wildland fires in California, Idaho and Oregon. The smoke gets into the upper West to East wind currents and turn otherwise blue skies to hazy grayish blue. That year about the only time one could expect the Western blue skies was the morning after an evening thunderstorm. I used a light orange filter (this was a monochrome camera) to combat the resulting haze from the fires. Every summer is different. However, at least in the US and Canada - massive summer wildland fires are the norm.

In 2024, the larger fires were in Montana. So while the skies in the Tetons didn't have too much impact - it skies in the Dakota badlands were a hazy grayish blue while in 2023 the skies in the Badlands were lovely. Sigh, you just never know when you have to deal with Mother Nature.