raymondh Loc: Walker, MI

I hate to offer any criticism of this beautiful exposure but I might’ve tried a slightly different angle so that the top part of the limb sticking up from the driftwood didn’t obstruct the view of the mountain.

Earnest Botello Loc: Hockley, Texas

That is a "WOW" shot, Jim.

weberwest Loc: Ferndale WA

Beautiful shot!

Cany143 Loc: SE Utah

No worries, Raymond. I understand --and though I disagree, I can accept-- your suggestion. In return, I ask/hope that you (and anyone else who might read and understand what I'm about to write) can likewise accept....

The 'critique' you offer is one I've likewise made, many, many times. A few times in the past, I've offered/written a similar suggestion ('if you'd have shifted your position a foot or two to the left or to the right, or up or down a matter of inches, you'd have.... and the image would then have....') about an image I believed was good but could have been in some way better. I came, however, to realize that though the 'critique' I offered would be valid for my way of seeing (i.e., my 'aesthetic'), it would not be necessarily valid for the image I might be critiquing, or would sufficiently fall within the realm of the 'aesthetic' of the poster (assuming, that is, that the poster has, or much concerns themself about, an aesthetic at all). And as much as I often have such thoughts, they're thoughts I keep to myself. Which I can only hope that you'll IN NO WAY take as 'criticism' of the suggestion you wrote.

To have raised my shooting position such that the top part of the limb no longer 'interfered' with the mountain would have made the Park Road visible. There are times when that's fine, and other times it's not. And in this instance (as it is in most instances --for me and/or for my aesthetic-- of the images I post), what I wanted was what I'd term a 'pure' landscape, which for me means a landscape free of human involvement beyond that which is implied by the camera's position. Implied in the sense that is what I --and by extension, where I want to place a viewer as well-- saw and experienced and shot in the scene. More purposefully, though (aesthetically speaking), I WANTED the interaction of those elements --of the near and the far, of the limb and the mountain-- and is specifically WHY the total of 14 exposures (two rows of 7 images across, one row focused near, the other row focused far) were focus stacked to (hopefully) achieve two things: to place the viewer in the place, and to establish interactions --the relationships, essentially-- between and among the various elements. Why you (or anyone) might ask? Isn't that a kind of overthinking something? or a kind of implied/non-stated sort of 'seeing as'? or nonsensically complicating something as presumably simple as an image? Perhaps. To some. But not to me.

I am not interested in things. I am only interested in the relationships and the interactions that are found, and are formed, between things. Because anything that is a 'thing' has presence, and where there is presence, there is life.

<edit> Were I to criticize this image, I'd only have said, 'I wish there'd been a better sky'.

flathead27ford Loc: Colorado, North of Greeley

👍🏻👍🏻

shangyrhee Loc: Nashville TN to Sacramento CA

Superb image !!! Thank you for sharing, Mike. Shang.

tcthome Loc: NJ

Beauty!

TheShoe Loc: Lacey, WA

Umnak Loc: Mount Vernon, Wa.

This is another great image Jim, no doubt it came from your vision/lens. What I like the most is that one can see exactly where the shadows moved across the land as the world turned around that big gas ball up there! The snow patches are quite mesmerizing all by themselves. Then I take in the beauty and balance you found, all around the snow patches! Nice work, as usual!
Rob

Lonewolf42 Loc: California

Very nice

OneShot1 Loc: Wichita, KS, USA

Love it sir.

gener202002

Nicely done

dreff Loc: Bow, WA

wonderful!

Ourspolair

Another beautiful landscape. Kudos, as usual.

waltnetto Loc: LaVerne, CA

You make some terrific photographs and this is just one.