Good morning light, and everything seemed to shimmer in green. This was a good place to sleep and to wake up.

This was about 3 miles upstream of the end of the trail, about 12 miles from actual trailhead where my car was parked. The sense of isolation was really nice, and I didn't see anyone for the next few days.

The big transparency looks good against the sky, when just holding it up to the window with my hand.

Fuji GX680II medium format camera
Fujinon 80/5.6
1/4 and f:32
Velvia 100

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This is excellent work.

Thanks as always, Erich. Yes, the shadows did have a lot of natural purplish tones in them that day, I saw that with my eyes. I think the Velvia just made the tones a little overboard compared to visual reference. Thanks for the compliment about "nice shot". I do think it came out well, and the tree is pretty majestic with its coating of freezing mist that is probably coming off the roaring waters out of sight down below.

Thanks guys and girls. Nice to have the feedback. One thing here, is that we get to sort of see which colors Velvia seems to grab in its emulsion. Sort of a before-and-after thing. First image Velvia, looks better in a mystical way - second image, closer to the human eye/brain processing of color.

I'm going to get just a wallet size print of each for field reference. I think they will work well to keep my brain focused on effects of Velvia. Interesting how Velvia sucks up color into its halation layers.

Thanks all for the good, constructive criticism. I think that the consensus is correct - too much blue and magenta hue. I should have seen it, and it's typical of Velvia in the shade.

I did a simple, basic adjustment was all - Desaturated about 10 points for both the blue and magenta tones, and about 7 points for the cyan tones. That pretty much knocks it into the ballpark of what I actually saw with my human eyes.

Mind you, I didn't hit the cyan too hard, because looking down into the base of the image, the foliage and light combined to create a lot of cyan. So, I retained that because it was how it looked to me.

I appreciate the suggestions, and here's a change in the image.

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It was getting towards dark a couple weeks ago, traversing high country off-trail.

Traversed down and around the buttress on the lower left that you can see in this image, and entered an untouched little green basin between rock towers - a fairyland of a rolling wet meadow with several small tarns, and little streamlets coursing through moss.

Though the terrain is steep looking to the brain, keep in mind it is not a problem for our combined leg and hip muscles, which are the largest and strongest on our bodies in relation to the rest of us.

Slow and steady wins the day. Don't blast your heart rate until you start panting, just ease along; the heart will find a steady state.

The image might come off as dark to some, but bear in mind that I wanted to be true to the light values as seen at this time of day.

It was such a peaceful day. This is where I like to be.

GX680 medium format camera
Velvia film

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The hillside in the background, which is actually across the box canyon below, is one of my routes up into the high country. It takes some careful climbing and a good amount of effort, but the high meadows are wonderful and isolated.

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Was cruising along Washington State Route 108, on the way to a hike. The sun was coming up from the east (right hand side of image) and so made good light on both mountains and the water of the Skokomish estuary emptying into Hood Canal. It was simply a nice enough scene to make me stop the car and scramble down a bank for the shot. A good way to start a new hike.

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And speaking of "staredowns"...don't EVER get locked into a staredown with an Olympic Marmot (Marmota olympus), especially one that is already angry about you being on his turf.

I got locked-in on the staredown when I glanced over to this guy. It lasted a long, long time...too long. The marmot won, I couldn't take it any more. Sometimes you lose the game. I wonder if this makes me a Lewzer human?

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This is MUCH more vibrant than my original "uncut" version. I will say right off the bat that I am not proficient with Photoshop - in fact I'm a Luddite, still using old Photoshop 6 on an XP machine. Go figure! I just HATE to sit in front of the computer (unless I'm showing some images I've taken, of course) for any long length of time.

I like the brighter tree, the seemingly increased contrast. Not sure if I like the ridgeline cut off. But overall, this is a REALLY nice interpretation, and you have increased the ability to sort of "scale" the scene to the human eye.

THANK YOU for taking the time to do this. May I use this in posts on other forums when I get around to it?

Dave, this guy's eye was actually locked onto me though his head was turned slightly. In essence, it was a "staredown" and I think he was surprised to see me. I thought of the "staredowns" I used to have with my sister when we were little, waiting to see who would blink first. :-)

Bob, how would you crop this? Any suggestion? I am using an "ancient" 2004 Minolta A2 bridge cam with a non-working EVF and a startlingly small "squinty" little 1.2 inch LCD screen, with Minolta 28-200 zoom. The aspect ratio is 4:3 which is slightly clunky. "Why?"you say? Because the color rendering of the Minolta glass is wonderful and the camera itself is tough and can take being knocked around. Just don't use ISO higher than 200...I just keep it set at ISO 64 for the most part.

Oh...the tree was about 2 feet high as I recall.

As a side note, I have been fulfilling a dream of using the whole summer here in my 70th year of life almost exclusively for cruising the wonderful off trail backcountry of the Olympic Mountains. It has been wonderful. And I've dropped 18 pounds in the past 3 months, with my older body subsequently gaining muscle strength. Of course, the season started with the usual "suffer fest" on the first couple of weeks. But now I'm noticing that, even after a 14 or even 16 hour day of rough travel, my recovery is much quicker. A pleasant surprise, and I'm more confident than ever that this body is not going to start to break. I only ask for at least another decade to be able to continue to roam.

Maybe too much info...sometimes I tend to put too much of my thoughts onto the keyboard. :-)

Thanks as always to everyone. I will work a little on the foreground, based on suggestions. The background needs to stay as is, in my opinion, because it's true to what was there - morning fog, pretty thick, ascending the basin and swirling around. There wasn't a lot of light at the instant of exposure; however I agree that brightening the foreground subjects might help a little with sense of scale.

Actually this was a very quick shot just before it REALLY socked in. Cranked the dials over to full automatic and let the camera figure it out for the fast shot, as I was a little concerned about thick fog starting to surround me. I took a quick compass bearing right after the shot, which allowed me to keep a sense of direction. I was on a traverse in this instance, and needed bearings in order to intercept a distant gap in a rock rib that was key to traveling to another basin.

Red Heather, White Heather, glacially scoured bedrock rib, and stunted (but tough and healthy) Subalpine Fir (Abies lasiocarpa).

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