Road to Nowhere, a photo from Down, Northern Ireland

Photographer's Note

Taken in the Mourne Mountains on my way back to the car after taking some shots of Spelga reservoir. The old road looked omnious as the clouds gathered in the valley.

This is a hdr of 5 images using photomatix and then some slight pp in photoshop to tweak the levels and saturation. Still experimenting with hdr so please be honest with your critique and let me know what you think.

Thanks,

Patrick

jorgi, rushfan2112, AdrianW ha contrassegnato questa nota come utile

Critiques | Translate

jonathan_hart (21276) 2008-01-12 17:36

indeed a mysterious destination at the end of this road, interesting mood
regards
jo

Atousa (7131) 2008-01-12 21:26

Salam,
Very beautiful compo, colors n quality..great atmosphere.
TFsharing,
AtousA

frankmcd (19) 2008-01-12 21:37 [Comment]

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jorgi (3810) 2008-01-12 23:16

Hi Patrick,

excellent capture. It think you used this technic very well, creating this intriging mood with the help of clouds gathering at the end. Great capture.

Best regards,
Jeri

devimeuxbe (58557) 2008-01-13 0:03

Hi patrick
This is a nice landscape with a beautifull dark sky. The light is very well managed and the coposition is very nice
Well done
Bertrand

rushfan2112 (2965) 2008-01-13 2:18

Hi Patrick.

I like the shot. I haven't dabbled with HDR yet, so I'm far from an expert. However, in most HDR images I've seen so far, the traditionally dark areas end up a bit too light. Not necessarily a 'problem' but humans don't see in the range that HDR imaging systems now allow.

In your shot, I like everything - apart from the road which, to me, looks a bit too light and and, consequently, a bit too dominant.

I accept that the title suggests that the road is the main feature but the bit that I 'want' to see is where it takes me and yet my eyes are continually pulled back to the road as a result of its dominance in the frame / its brightness.

This is all relatively minot stuff as it's a bloody good image. Also, my eyes are far from 20:20 in the vision stakes - so this is only an opinion.

Really good work and I'll have to have a look at this Photomatix thingy.

Regards, Paul.

AdrianW (2274) 2008-05-30 19:46

Nice shot Patrick! I like the way the road draws the eye towards the coming maelstrom ahead. Your HDR work is nicely done too, it looks very natural IMO.

About the only thing I do notice is a slight softness that I often see with fractionally out of alignment HDR images. If you agree, try re-processing it with the latest version of Photomatix, and experiment with the alignment options in there.

Also, if you have five images like this, check to see whether you think any are not contributing significantly to the end result, and consider dropping those frames; fewer frames usually results in better alignment too.

If fewer frames and the alignment options still result in slight softness, try using something like PTgui to pre-align the frames before you merge them.

Overall a very nice piece of work though :D