The Weekly Landscape Thread

This weekly thread, starting on a Friday, allows us to showcase our Landscape photos and get some feedback.
Opening up discussions, not only on content, style, composition & techniques, but also on the emotion in the image, and of course about the place itself.

It’s easy to participate

Post an image or short essay with a title and description. To make it easier to view in the forum, all comments should include the original title and at least one of the original images as a quote.

Thread Guidelines:

1. This thread is for sharing and developing our Landscape photography skills.
2. Entries can be a single image or a short photo essay (2 to 10 connected images that tell a story).
3. Give your entry a clear title and perhaps also explain why you took it, or the story it tells.
4. Provide constructive feedback on others’ images/essays.
   Try to go beyond simple praise or dismissal and explain why you like it, or what caught your eye.
   ”Likes” are encouraged too.
5. Negative feedback and suggestions are also OK (be polite, honest, and constructive).

Giving feedback is just as important as receiving feedback, both help to improve our artistic and technical skills.

What is a Landscape photo?

This means different things for different people. For me, it includes a wide range of photos taken outside, … from wide sweeping vistas to smaller details found along the route. Seascapes, landscapes, cityscapes, woodland shots, landscapes at night with some stars, and lots more are all OK. They could also include man-made objects and people or animals outside, but they are not usually the main subject. Show us, with your photos, what Landscape Photography means to you.

Motivation

I love to go hiking in the natural world and capture photos along the way. It keeps me fit (physically and mentally) and provides some beautiful memories. Processing those images when I return is fun too, it often helps to enhance what I saw.

Downloading and reposting

It’s often challenging to verbalise comments about images. Instead, it’s sometimes easier to “show.” Unless the original poster specifically states otherwise (in each original post), participants are free to download, alter, and repost images in replies to express their analysis and critique. The reposted image may remain permanently or be removed after a short period. Downloaded and altered images shall not be used for any other purposes or uploaded elsewhere.

Enough said,… Go out, enjoy the open air, take some photos. Bring back the memories and post them here in the Weekly Landscape Thread 😊

...looking forward to seeing your images,

Stegmoosalm once again

Here’s some more shots from a place I’ve visited many times.
This week, went with two friends for their first try at snow shoe walking. They are both experienced back country touring ski enthusiasts but the avalanche risk in our area is currently quite high, so we chose a safer place and used the snow shoes.
The next day we went Alpine skiing, with perfect snow and weather conditions, but I left the camera at home that day.
Anyway, we enjoyed some great active days in the mountains 😀

At the top of Stegmoosalm the mountain hut sits at 1450m.
It’s open during the summer to refresh the hikers with local food and drink, but closed in the winter, of course.

This shot shows the results of a recent “roof avalanche”.
If you happened to have been standing under it as it fell, you’d probably still be there; only to re-surface in the spring!

My two sports friends following the ski tracks up the slope.

Another view of that slope with nice ski track patterns and the two small people giving a bit of scale and context

Down below the mist is still hanging over the village

This is the rocky outcrop at Stegmoosalm where I saw and posted here about the ”B&W Gams” 6 weeks ago

Sunrise

Of course there is a story. There was a massive thunderstorm during the night. We headed out to the East entrance of Badlands NP before sunup. We go there just as the son was popping over the ridge. Did I mention a massive storm the night before. I took this shot just as the sun was spotlighting the peaks. The soil in the badlands of both North and South Dakota has a high concentration of Bentonite clay. Bentonite clay gets slicker than whale snot on ice when it is wet. It is also very sticky. After this shot I start to walk out toward the draw looking for the next shot and though I saw the perfect composition and lighting. When I got to the point I could not walk on the rocky area, I stepped in the saturated clay and by left foot goes up into the air and I go feet over ass and on my way down I held my camera as high as possible to keep it from hitting the ground.

In doing so I am on my ass in the mud and the mud had sucked one of my shoes off. Wrong shoes to be sure. So I am crawling around rescuing my shoe while keeping my camera safe. I find my shoe and eventually get it on and now I got to get up. Did I mention that it was slick. I mange to crawl to the little rise where I hoist myself up and by now I'm covered with clay mud. Fortunately I had hiking sticks so I was able to carefully and slowly get back to the rocky area dnd make my way back to the truck.

My wife who had gone off another direction looked and me and laughed informing me that there was no way I was not getting into the truck covered in mud - I could ride in the bed. I did manage to find a pair of pants and shirt and pair of socks in the "dirty cloths bag" in the truck scrapped most of the mud off my legs and arms so it could dry. She did let me ride in the truck but sitting on a towel. The shirt, socks and pants I was wearing went into the dumpster when we got back to town. They were never going to come clean.

Moral: if you are paying too much attention to finding your next composition - you could end up paying a price. 😆 However, I managed to save my camera from getting a single speck of mud on it. 👍

You're a good storyteller!
Congrats on saving the camera 📷
Perhaps the "Badlands" name was inspired by that sticky mud?
The shot is good with the bright sunlit peak looking even brighter by contrasting it to the large area you've kept dark.
Maybe you could try an experiment with a square crop where the right hand side is cut off. That would remove those two bright triangles on the right side that seem to be stealing the show from the main bright peak, and also, somehow, more details in the dark shadow area then start to appear.

I debated with myself over the right side - going back and forth. With the draw being a leading line, eliminating the right portion would make the leading line more pronounced. On the other hand eliminating the right seems to give the image a "standoffish" look not inviting you in.

This is from our trip in 2021. I just transferred my images for an older disk to a newer disk as I did a major renovation of my computer setup making my desk much less cluttered with disk and wires. It took almost two days to transfer 2 TB from a first gen USB-C at 5 gbits/sec and then back it up. In the dark room days I would go back (especially in the winter) when I lived in Maryland, Virginia and the Colorado and reprint old negatives. Giving an image time to age can give you a different perspective. Now that my computer is better organized my plan is to start going back to these old captures and take another look.

Nice shot, and great timing with the seagull. We wanted to try this but couldn't with the little ones. I have this and the scuba/submarine adventures on the list for next time.

This is the view from the gazebo at Farley Hill National Park.

A view from the train at St Nicholas Abbey

The Crowley Lake columns. A very unique geological feature. Couldn't really visit with good light (took 3 tries across 2 days with the weather and off road conditions). They can be hiked to as well. C&C welcome.

Tripod for a bit of scale in the distance.

Blended image to help get a bit better depth of field.

Extraordinary phenomenon! Being a geology junkie (trying to kick the habit 😉) I googled this area - fascinating.
Your pictures are great despite the harsh light. Were there many people there? In europe somewhere like this would be overun with tour groups.

Taking you and Fireplace's comments, I went back and started to reprocess last night. As when I originally processed it, I'm finding it difficult to decide on cropping and manipulation of exposure. The area you speak of on the bottom right can be a distraction, on the other hand it is difficult to eliminate the area completely. So I'm calming the light down. After I work with it some more I'l repost.

That's great! Good for you. I like #2, 3 and 4 the best. Fun. Yes, #5 did look familiar. I was able to go skiing this week, but I only had my phone with me.

Great pic and a great story! What an excellent time-of-day (lighting) for a moonscape. Yes, I am somewhat familiar with that kind of clay, but NOT YOUR experience. We have to make sacrifices to protect the camera -- that is the mission! I visited Badlands many years ago (1970's) on a family trip. But as a little kid, I was more impressed with Wall Drug back then. :-)

A cool picture and some fairly serious terrain! You definitely need good shoes and you need to be mindful of protecting your camera gear, too (I'm assuming).

A really nice view from the gazebo.

Very, very interesting. Amazing. I have not visited that area for many, many years (i.e., Yosemite and Mono Lake)... and have never heard about these columns. Thanks for posting this. I need to go back someday and explore.

View from the Magnolia Bridge - (I believe it is officially called the Garfield Street Bridge.) This view is looking southeast. A stitch of 8 images (portrait). A nice sunny January day (Friday 16-JAN-26). I had a business meeting in the morning which wrapped-up at noon. Since I had a little bit of time to spare, I decided to drive over to this location and give it a try. The mid-day light isn't optimal, but the sun is at a lower angle in the winter, so that helps.