[Pavel]

Beautiful place in the early evening. Your comments, particularly on postprocessing are very wellcome. Thank you. Pavel

[enviroguy]

Hi, Pavel! This is a great photo of a unique area of the province. The texture, colour, and sharpness throughout the picture appear very good. The lighting revealed the spectactular nature of the sculptured rocks very well. I notice that you did not include any of the sky. Probably a good idea here. I wonder if the overall brightness is a bit too high....could just be my monitor. Nicely done. Regards.....Dennis

[Irma]

A beautiful place, Pavel. And you took your picture in the right time to get dramatic shadows. You worked very well your exposure. I see a lot of detail in the trees and the colors very beautiful specially the green color. You have a lot of richness in textures here.

I find your composition a bit static. I am missing a line to guide my eye to explore the landscape.

[Pavel]

Thank you both Dennis and Irma.

Dennis, the sky was bright on the right and dark on the left. I tried "gradient" in Photoshop but I failed for now. So, I just cut off the sky. I liked the composition better without it, as it turned out. You may be right about brightness, Dennis. I still can not decide what is the right amount of manipulation. Sometimes I think I am overdoing it and sometimes I like it. I do not know my own mind.

Irma, as always you seem to be right. I have taken many photos where the ridge or the canal leads your eyes to greenery, but for one reason or another, I did not like the results. When I was taking the photo, I thought that the central ridge is still enough to lead your eyes, though broken upo as it is. I may post a photo with better composition in a few days.

I very much appreciate feedback from both of you. Thank you. Pavel

[Pavel]

Thank you both Dennis and Irma.

Dennis, the sky was bright on the right and dark on the left. I tried "gradient" in Photoshop but I failed for now. So, I just cut off the sky. I liked the composition better without it, as it turned out. You may be right about brightness, Dennis. I still can not decide what is the right amount of manipulation. Sometimes I think I am overdoing it and sometimes I like it. I do not know my own mind.

Irma, as always you seem to be right. I have taken many photos where the ridge or the canal leads your eyes to greenery, but for one reason or another, I did not like the results. When I was taking the photo, I thought that the central ridge is still enough to lead your eyes, though broken upo as it is. I may post a photo with better composition in a few days.

I very much appreciate feedback from both of you. Thank you. Pavel

[matthew]

Pavel, I like both this and your other badlands photos. They're as good as any of the shots that I've seen, and better than any of the ones that I've taken there. The colours and compositions are vibrant and pleasing, and show good use of lines.

I also know how little you have to work with here: very few shooting positions and a remarkably small area.

Now keep in mind that I'm a city person, and am on record as someone who doesn't "get" most landscape, flower, and nature photographs, so take this for what it's worth: I don't see a subject here. The overall scenery isn't enough to hold my interest, and ultimately these come across as record shots. It's the sunset trap: an unusual scene with pretty colours and pleasing shapes makes for a tempting photograph, but they make better backgrounds than subjects. I look at these and am not sure what your opinion is, or if I should have one, beyond simply looking at an artfully arranged scene.

(I also don't "get" many very famous and highly-regarded photographer's work, including some chap who spent a lot of time wandering through American national parks with a view camera.)

[Pavel]

Thanks Mathew for a very kind review. I agree with you that my photos of Badlands lack focus. This is a point also raised in different ways by Irma, NT and Zig as well and I agree with you all. One solution, which I did not use adequately (but Zig reminded me) is to use the widest setting of my lens to enhance smaller objects into interesting focus of a photo. I do this often, but I came on the site late and wished to use the "golden hour" and did everything without a due forethought and walkabout (I am slow).

However, if I understand you correctly you are not a fan of "empty" landscapes. This is a big difference between us. I love the photos of a certain "chap who spent a lot of time wandering through American national parks with a view camera" and if we are talking about the same chap, I even learned and used the Zone System because of his influence. I lived in the city all my life and I do not think I would be happy living far from the city, but for me being in the country is a great spiritual experience and it is a strong motivator for me to remain less decrepid physically and the main motivator for photography. Some of the most memorable experiences of my life are canoe trips in Kilarney, Tamagaming, French River, Algonquin Park etc. I am perfectly happy with landscape photos containing nothing living, but I agree that most photos require one or 2 focuses of attention.

Thanks Mathew for taking time to comment. Pavel