+++ The Weekly Landscape Thread - #5, 2025.03.07

The wavy shapes in the rock make this interesting to me. I guess that's due to original sedimentary structures (dune bedding?) in the now metamorphosed rock. Beautiful anyhow.

You would be wrong about massive jagged peaks. This a the top of Bryce Canyon. Things go down - not up. These formations are called reefs. This is in the Bryce Canyon, Capital Reef area (both US National Parks) is neighboring just to the North. This landscape is common to South-central Utah. It is a unique landscape where winds have eroded sandstone over time to produce unique landscapes. These landscapes are unique to Utah, although Cappadocia Turkey has similar geology.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Reef_National_Park

I had the pleasure in my younger and stupid days to qualify for a 100 mile horse endurance ride in that area. I should say my wonderful horse did. We stayed right across the road from Capital Reef for about a month before the race. I spend hours on horse back in the park to get my horse from Florida used to the elevation and terrain. I got lost in its beauty. Capital Reef is a designated Dark Sky area. That is where the ambient artificial light is minimal so at night you can understand what Carl Sagan meant when he talked about the billions and billions of stars in the universe. On the ride, the "Race of Champions" - that was my horse not me - we were out after dark and let me tell you on top of the plateaus you needed need any light between the moon and stars.

Both are enjoyable especially 1.
1 has the layers falling away to the setting sun but balanced with the blade of light on the river. I feel the proportions of the layers is just right withing the portrait format.
2 I feel might be a little too wide. I don't feel the flags, bright area to the right are adding anything and I think the discontinuation of the triangular roof section pulls too much attention to the right. How would you feel about a cropping the left hand side about halfway through the left hand pillar and cropping on the right ar about halfway through the through the right hand full pillar?

The horizontal rock bands in the falls break the flow up. The framing of the shot accentuates the horizontal bands and frames them with the foliage.
It all comes nicely together.

[quote="@Fireplace33"]

View from the Bell Pavilion

At the end of 2019 we went on a holiday to South Korea, had a fantastic tour with a local guide, just for our family.
He knew all the best places and when to be there 😊
Here’s two shots from a visit to a temple at the top of a mountain. It was the Bell Pavilion at Seokguram Gyeongju just as the sun was setting.
The sunset light created a river of gold for us and the haze made several layers visible and softened the bright sun too.
Both shots were taken as 3 shot bracketed exposures and combined.

Really nice the leading line of the reflections off the river leading through the valley to the first ridge and on to the second. Mother nature really was on your side with enough dust in the atmosphere to scatter the blue light only leaving reds and yellows to filter through. Nice capture.

Good shot !
The details really come out when viewed full screen. I like the way the chosen shutter speed gives enough blur to show the movement of the water but is still fast enough to keep most of the details, so it looks "real" to me.
The image is nice and sharp all the way to the corners.
The dark wet rocks really glisten and shine, showing off all those nice layers. Beautiful lush grren/yellow colours too.

I like the shot as it is, but here's a sort of technical point about its perspective.
This is where we get into a matter of taste 😉
If it was my shot I might try to "correct" some of the key-stoning effect that is visible here, and see if it looks even better.
Since the camera had to point upwards for this shot, any vertical lines are splayed inwards towards the middle of the image at the top.
So the water stream falling on the left seems to fall down and a bit towards the left side , while the streams on the right fall down and a bit towards the right.
This also makes the cliff face look a little less steep than it probably appeared to you while you were there. "Correcting" that makes it look a bit steeper and the water falls more vertically on both sides. You would however lose some of the greenery at the top on the left and right sides.(I can post an edit if you like) In shots like this I’ll often shoot a bit wider in the field, to allow for a correction as described in post.

Thanks for the tips Mike.
In the second shot cropping off the roof seems to open it up and give me more "space to breathe" when looking at the image :-)
I like it when it doesn't feel cramped, so that is definitely an improvement!
As to cropping the right side, that seems to remove part the "wide scenic view" and cramp me in again. Even though part of that scenic view is hidden behind the big fat pillar, I can still feel its presence, So I'll leave that bit as is :-)

The mountains do look good. That blue colour is so typical, especially in winter!
The blue contrasts nicely with the warmer colours of the foreground and gives some depth to the image.

Lapland looks like a good destination!
It's a nice snowy scene you've captured here! The frost covered branches are great !
I like the gentle colours; a tiny bit of blue in the cold water, and a touch of green in the background trees.
All the rest is white, nice and bright with some good contrast too.

Great, well composed, scene.
The curvy road takes us into the image and leads towards the snow covered mountains.
Zooming in you can look around and search for the little details, like the tractor. a man, several cows,...
Again we have nice warm colours with the foreground flowers and then cooler and cooler colours receding further into the distance. So a good feeling of depth.
And all topped with those lovely fluffy clouds :-)

Great story!
Must have been quite an experience.
I'd love to see the stars in a place like you described here.

I would not have thought Bryce would fare well in black and white but you managed to use the light nicely to convey the tones and lines of it.

I've always wanted to see Lapland. It fascinated me as a child in grade school geography. Lovely image with the bonus of leading lines and a big fat X to guide us in every direction. The icy trees are delicate as lace.

Amazing mountainscape.

Thank you. Watching that glow develop and spread is similar to watching a total eclipse. Amazing.

I'm always of two minds too, hating crowds but wanting to see any wonderful place I find myself in. 10 is manageable but I skipped Delicate Arch because there were literally hundreds..NO. I don't carry a tripod so I can easily move around while everybody else is anchored in place or jostling for anchoring position, and often you find the best angles that way. Considerate? mostly. Actually the most inconsiderate photographer I ever ran across was at this very Mesa Arch, and I gave him a wide berth. But for every jerk there's a dozen nice folks. I've made some friends in such places that I still keep up with.

I love rim lighting too. The way the arch lights up is its magic. It was early spring when I was there, so the big crowds hadn't yet arrived. But Canyonlands and the surrounding areas of the Colorado plateau are so vast, it's easy to find fabulous places with absolutely no one around. Arches tends to get more traffic than Canyonlands and Capitol Reef, but even at Arches, if you get outside the park, it's the same scenery, but without the crowds.

Well done. It isn't easy to find a way to shoot something like Mesa Arch where there is a limited angle to work with and the place has been photographed so often before.
You have done it by allowing us merely a tantalizing peak at the view seen through the arch. It gives something of the suspense in a theatre as the curtain half rises.

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As you say, this isn't what I think I'm going to see when the title includes "Cappadocia." As a result, the photo is all the more interesting.
It's an overcast scene that has been cleverly handled without an overboosting of the landscape. The forground yellows lift the image while thr brighter tracks take the viewer through the scene to the foot of the mountains. Then the peaks take up the line and into the cloud formation. The top left blue gives visual balance to the bottom right entry of the tracks.
A quiet, understated but beautifully constructed image. It's worth studying.

An extraordinary place and a perfect quote.

I'm certain that the image has to be seen as a large print. On my screen the contrast between the brightest areas and the shadows, is too great. The relatively small bright areas jump out without feeling linked to the composition.
On a large print I feel that the details in the darker areas would be more prominent.

Yes you are right. Many B&W's need to be views in large prints. I have a 16x20 from the original negative that is in the rotation of prints in my house. The trouble with smaller prints and especially with the Internet is the compression of the size which leads to a compression of viewing distance - impacts the smoothness of tonal graduations. The other issue is not all displays are calibrated the same. I have two. The images on my precisely calibrated Apple Studio nano texture display look different than on my LG display. Ithaca to do with the nano texture display is much better in maintaining the smoothness of the tonal gradations than the non textured LG. I know this is a first world problem.

I agree with Fireplace and I disgree, somewhat with the OP. The composition is fine. It is a scene worth recording.
IMNHO, you got the proportions between the dark band at the bottom, the mid mountains and the sky right. There isn't much of particular interest in the lower band, it's a base that gives weight and contrast to the mountains and sky. The mountains are the main interest.
The sky is important. It's the "big sky" statement. It's clear, blue and impressive. The whole scene, the grand outdoors, benefits from the sky. It needs to be big and clear.
It isn't a shot about a specific object. It's the totality of the place, the light, the moment. The proportions you have given to the elements of the image and the use of horizontal lines all add up to good composition in my book.

There are some very delicate touches here. I think it is a colour image of a monotone scene. White against blacks. Blacks against whites. White on whites. The larger snow areas have enough detail in them to give shape and texture. Getting the exposure right has been important to the image.
The positioning of the dark river between the snow banks is especially well done. It takes the eye in a zig zagging line from left to right and back again while drawing the photo together.
The snow on the rocks in the middle give a gentle rest to the movement. They become a subject point without dominating. Ans the same for the closer trees.
Beautifully done.