Anvil Loc: Loveland, CO

I love that first shot. It makes me want to go there.

You have mentioned that you frequently do panos, and it struck me that this might be one, because it is so sharp, throughout. Is it a pano, and, if so, how many shots did you use? I ask this because, when I attempt panoramic shots, my results scream "panoramic" at me. I usually try to create a field of vision that is really too wide to be useful. Your shots make me look at the scene, first, and it isn't until I've absorbed the scene that I wonder whether it is a pano. That is what I'd like to create, when I attempt a pano.

AzPicLady Loc: Behind the camera!

I love sand ripples and have tried for years to do one. I have always failed. These are wonderful. I particularly like in the second one how the shadow of an unseen object (the plant) is a participant in the scene. I wonder if I had not seen the first image, would I feel a need for an explanation of that shadow?

Keven Loc: Grandview, WA

As usual very nice

vicksart Loc: Novato, CA -earthquake country

Very nice shots. The first is particularly appealing.

cambriaman Loc: Central CA Coast

Both super! I agree, the monochrome does look like a color image converted. I had never seen anything that way until you suggested it. Interesting. Maybe having seen the color version first influenced my thinking when I saw the monochrome!
Thanks for sharing.

marsdad Loc: NE Florida

#1 is definitely a keeper and perhaps should be considered a wall hanger!!

Cany143 Loc: SE Utah

Anvil: nope, the first image is not a stitched-together pano. It was a solo shot that I chose to crop as I did for compositional and/or ....err.... philosophical reasons. Y'see, I tend to agree with that noted non-photographer Arrie Stottle, who wrote something along the lines of: if it doesn't further the work, remove it.

I don't find panos (either software generated or cropped by choice) all that difficult, but that may be a result of having made them a lot and for a long time. They're also maybe a little more natural for me, because I tend to have more a 'big picture' sort of way of approaching things. At the same time, weirdly, a lot of the stuff that really interests me tends to make me pretty granular, too, so I try to stay conscious --at least in a photograph-- of 'what is the subject' and 'what other elements need to be included that will support that subject.' I figure panos ought to be something other than just really wide pictures. Or something like that.

Did that help?

deayala1 Loc: Pleasanton, CA

Love the color shot. The B&W seems a little dark to me. What kind of equipment and settings did you use?

Anvil Loc: Loveland, CO

Yes, it helps to be reminded that the subject is the thing. I think that one reason I have been challenged with panos is that I cannot always identify what it is about a scene that I like. In other words, the challenge is artistic, rather than technical. Sometimes, I look at a big scene, and I am bewitched by its "bigness". The "bigness" is the subject, as there is often no other, obvious focal point, in the scene. That is when I want to take some, epic panoramic shot, but I just end up with something too wide and too short. Think about standing on a tall hill, with nothing but rolling hills as far as you can see. Much more impressive in real life than I have ever been able to capture.

MattPhox Loc: Rhode Island

I like the originals and love it in black and white.

Cany143 Loc: SE Utah

In an earlier reply, I mentioned that I hadn't stepped back to the RAW file to make the B&W version, which would've been a much better way of going about it. Instead, I simply converted the (un-reduced .tif) file that included the adjustments I'd already made, and that resulted in the color shot I posted, then made a couple quick further adjustments (mainly to shadow areas in the background rock face on the right). Aware there were still technical problems that could have been addressed, I down-sampled to web size, and posted the result more as an answer to a 'what if?' question that had earlier been posed. As such, I hadn't intended for the B&W version to be the version I'd necessarily want to present; that was the color version you indicate you like.

In that earlier reply, I also mentioned that --to me-- the B&W version really didn't stand up well, and gave some reasons why. Though those reasons are other than the one you state --"seems a little dark to me"-- I agree with your assessment too. But I might modify your assessment slightly, though, and say that portions of the image are too dark, and other portions are too contrasty.

Equipment --the lens, at least-- was being field tested on a digital body for the first time. Specs include: Fujifilm X-Pro1 / 20mm f/3.5 Mir (Mir-20M) / hand-held / ISO 200 (base Fuji setting) / 1/500th / exact aperture setting is not recorded in exif due to the hybrid lens/camera combination, but I'm pretty sure I was using f/8-11 at the time / CaptureOne Fuji Express / LR / PS / NIC. Not to mention an ounce or so of Woodford & Sons double-oaked bourbon over two ice cubes in a glass. The bourbon part is the part to keep most in mind, though, before such time if/when you find that same scene under the same conditions to shoot it for yourself. I suggest any sipping, however, be delayed until you get home; the land out there is not entirely flat and is not without the occasional obstacle.

Cany143 Loc: SE Utah

For what its worth, for me, 'subject' usually doesn't equate to 'object' or 'thing.' More often, 'subject' is typically idea, or theme, or concept. Where some people see the 'thingness' of a tree, I might instead see that tree as 'living thing,' especially when placed in relation with a rock, a 'non-living thing.' Take that same tree, or better, find a threatened and haggard looking one, and place --or position your shooting self such where you see-- that tree between two rocks, and what do you have? A half-dead tree between two rocks? Or an allegory of human existence? Now reposition yourself such that the tree reaches above those two rocks, and who's winning that battle? Or if you got really lucky, and everything 'clicked' a symbolic statement that could --to some-- go past the strictly figurative. Something impossible to put into words, perhaps, so we hope the image will speak about the things we don't have the words to express. Which of course I don't mean literally.

In vogue at present is the notion that a photograph must possess, or must elicit, a feeling or a mood or something generally emotive. How Romantic (in the technical sense). That's fine, I suppose, but if history has taught us anything, its that vogues go out of date and fashions go out of style. Look at The Masters, and you'll see that while they represent their time and place, their genius lies in their (accidental? intentional? who knows?) ability to transcend whatever 'present' they found themselves in, and produced works that work, i.e., appeal universally, in all times and places. And the best of those did so by reacting or rebelling against whatever trend prevailed in their time, consciously or otherwise.

But I digress.... sorry about that.

deayala1 Loc: Pleasanton, CA

I agree with you on "parts" of the b&w being too dark. Thanks for your response

RichardTaylor Loc: Sydney, Australia

Super set.

Robert M Loc: Clifton, NJ

Simply beautiful.......