From the thumbnail I thought it was a stick in the water. Nice surprise when I opened it. Beautiful composition. I think it's the optical illusion tilt that gives your b&w's that holga look I mentioned. Just excellent!
Julien and Marc, I think any tilt to the horizon here is a sort of optical illusion. Below the distant mountain is a dark band, and below that, on the right side, is a medium-toned area between the dark band and the sand dune. If you look at the center 2/3 of the photo, the boundary between the dark band and the medium tone is level to the horizon, and it's level in the photo. At the far right, some closer dark hills bend the boundary downward. Nonetheless, perhaps the existence of such an illusion is a flaw in itself, and otherwise I agree with your comments, thanks!
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Marc Gougenheim{K:5398} 11/30/2002
Yes, I think you are right to say it was under-appreciated, Ken... It is not a top-notch shot in this genre, but it's nice. I do agree a bit with Julien's comment though, and wish the horizon would be straight. If you haven't seen it yet, try to see Jeff Alu's work on photo.net. Jeff is really a great photographer for this kind of shots. regards.
Oh yes sorry, I meant stick but my english is not so good. And it gets even worse when I am tired :-) I wouldnt have suggested you move a whole tree you know ;-)
It's not actually a tree, it's a stick lying on the sand. It touches the sand at 3 points, where it contacts its shadow. The stick is only about 2 feet long; I was already pretty close to it, maybe 2 feet away. I think any closer would stretch the limits of DOF. But maybe a lower angle would have been better to get more 3D effect, I'm not sure. Thanks for your suggestions!
I think this has potential but you could have done better maybe. I think if you have gotten closer to the tree then the 3d effect would be more impressive. And the photo would get more dynamic. Also maybe (if a photographer is allowed to do this) you could have changed the position of the tree carfully to make the composition a play of the tree and its own shadow. The photo looks a bit tilted, but I usually dont have a problem with this, since I hardly get my images untilted either :-D
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