Today at my place

[connealy]

[nelsonfoto]

now THAT's what I call a back yard.

[sandeha]

This is a tough one, Mike, as it invites comparison with two other well-published, contemporary photographers, and yet falls right between them - sort of "putting a red filter on Velvia" if that makes any sense.  

It's very harsh in the tones and strong in the forms, but I imagine that you'd have lost the horizon in haze if you'd left it untouched.  Geometrically they balance out, but the whites still look empty.  Personally I might have blacked out the shadows and the bush to retain more in the sky, but that would probably lose the directional 'vectors'.

Just lower right of the center, there's a short line of plants sitting directly on a path running from the base of the bush to the center of the mesa.  The same imaginary path extends towards us, traced in the rocks, but in light tones.  That path acts as an anchor for me; it stops me getting dizzy from the swirl and falling behind the first bluff.  I'm wondering how large this would print?  Impressive.

[dhgee]

The blast of light against the bluff is a little blown, but the tones of the earth are rich. Like the composition, as above; forms, plant life, etc. You could spend years just exploring this kind of landscape...

[Anonymous]

first of all I really think letting the dog dig in the back yard was a bad idea....

Perhaps it is my monitor setting.....I see two darkish bands, left and right, with what seems to my eye a "clearer to the eye for seeing the detail" exposure in the middle. I'm guessing these are shadow bands from clouds.

What comes to mind is Ansel Adams and how he worked the light and exposure in his photos. I wonder what he would have done, if there is a way to work across this exposure range.  Or might he have waited and watched for lighting changes.

I think I might have tried a function in Paint Shop Pro that I understand better than levels and curves: Adjust - Highlights, midtones, and shadows. And might apply it just to the sides.

It looks like a spot that one could point a camera at 365 days of the year and that light and shadow and colours as well as bw tones would shift and twinkle and delight from pre-dawn to just after sunset.

[connealy]

Thanks for the comments.  The image is from my converted Billy Record pinhole camera on Delta 400 rated at 200 and processed in HC-110,H.  The eroded cliffs are about a 15 minute walk south of my house.  I waited for the cloud shadows to break over the house; it is below the flat-topped butte in the background, but it was under the resolution threshold of the pinhole.

[Tom Hildreth]

Just a few comments shot from the hip:
How is it I'm getting dizzy from this shot? Sandeha mentioned "swirl" and I'm seeing lots of it. Also noticed a small bungee jumper (or dust) just off the face of the rock in the brightest portion of the picture. Might be a bird, but I've had so much trouble with dust that it seems distracting to me even though it's tiny. Did you really want that much light drop-off on the right?

[connealy]

Yes, you are right about the spot; it's actually a tree or bush, but a bit withered by the pinhole.  The image is full-frame with around a 140 deg. angle of view.  I tried not to over-do the manipulation of the photo; the distribution of tonal values across the scene is pretty much from the combination of cloud shadows and the rendering by the pinhole.

[nelsonfoto]

Bonus points for having been wrought out of  pinhole.