Oddly enough I was taking another look at both of those images and thought they looked a bit dull and flat. A criticism that could be applied to the whole set really. It was a very dull day in terms of light, so I guess that's realistic, but it's not ideal, so I've had a fettle around with them to punch them up a bit, hopefully not getting too carried away in the process. This time I've uploaded them at full 100MP resolution as well (with 90% JPEG compression).
In this one I've increased overall brightness, contrast on the rockface, darkened the black level throughout and brought out the reflection in the water a little bit more. I've lifted the saturation a bit too, in order to emphasis the subtle hues in the rocks. Apparently that water is about 30 metres deep!
This one has had similar treatment. This was taken with the 100-200 which doesn't seem to be particularly well regarded on the medium format forum and I must admit, I find it a little inconsistent too, but here I think it's done a good job. I particularly like the detail on the cave floor, the individual shards of slate and the leaves scattered amongst them all picked out quite clearly.
Wow - what a story... Sorry to hear that. It really looked like the remnants of a (bloody) ritual to me at first glance... I didn't realize how close that seems to be to what actually happened. Now that I know the wall in the background it also makes me think of the 'wailing wall'. I can't imagine how devastating it must be to see all of your belongings go up in flames. Glad to hear no one got seriously hurt at least!
Thanks for the context. It's a devastating but very effective image for sure - excellent work!
The Fortingall Yew , an ancient tree in a church yard in a small Perthshire hamlet, it may be as young as 2000yrs or as old as 5000yrs depending on the source
Ancient yews are fascinating. There were some very old ones near where I used to live in the Forest of Dean, but nothing like 5000 years. I would love to have seen some of the scenes it has witnessed.