Cloud Reflection

[Lesley Jones]

Taken on Greatstone beach. The sand was soggier than it looked and I ended up with wet feet again...

 

[Dan Cattermole]

Every frame you produce impresses me!
Your work is fantastic!!

 

[Lesley Jones]

It's kind of you Dan, but I owe some of the look to Julian. His clouds really impressed me the other day and as I happened to be doing this next anyway, I thought about what Julian had done. I'm not entirely sure of course, but the tonal contrast filter seemed to work. I would normally leave sky and clouds alone, or even soften them. Sometimes doing the other thing can work

 

[Chris Dodkin]

I like the clouds and I really like the texture in the sand - worth getting wet feet for I reckon

Lovely 'big sky' feel, even with the portrait style presentation

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Very nice indeed.

 

[Pete Askew]

I'm with Chris. It is the contrast of textures that makes this shot special for me Lesley. I like it a lot.

 

[Julian de'Courcy]

It's kind of you Dan, but I owe some of the look to Julian. His clouds really impressed me the other day and as I happened to be doing this next anyway, I thought about what Julian had done. I'm not entirely sure of course, but the tonal contrast filter seemed to work. I would normally leave sky and clouds alone, or even soften them. Sometimes doing the other thing can work

LOL As if I new. I don't even know what the tonal contrast filter is. I did a while back purchase a very expensive set of lee filters, ND grads and a wide angle holder. In practice these filters are seldom used , but I do intend to.. If the sky is blown , I do use the grad filter in PS and dodge and burn, thats about it. I would love to learn a bit about layers and manipulation , but the truth being that I watch videos about such matters and the next day it is all forgotten.


Love your clouds.

 

[Lesley Jones]

Julian - it took YEARS for me to get my head around layers. My husband isn't into photography, but he got it straight away. Somehow he couldn't explain in a way I could understand. Then I finally got it. They are like transparent sheets on top of the original image - each one with it's own adjustments and either all over, or painted in selectively.

I only ever use a neutral density filter on the camera (I can't afford anything else), so the tonal contrast is a filter in Nik's Color Efex. I may have got it wrong, but for me it enhances detail and I like to use it as both positive and negative control points. You just stick a point on the image, adjust the spread and voila!

 

[Julian de'Courcy]

Yes Lesley I understand what layers are and what they achieve , it is the use of. ie: Click here, then click this, then click such and such. The road map of clicks of opening and applying leaves me. One of my problems is I use several pieces of software on one image as for myself each does something slightly better than the other. I start in DPP, and then will use LR or PScs or both and so on. This leaves me of being master of none. I do find my pictures sometimes can be too pretty which I am aware of if I proccess to much but its fun sometimes. I also like post cards and the postcard format which is why I put on the white borders sometimes, but a good image will always stand on its own merit.

 

[Lesley Jones]

Ah... it's not clicks with me. I don't understand all the keyboard shortcuts - my cats are better at those. I don't think photographs can be too pretty. You take what pleases you and process in the same way. The world can always use more pretty pictures

 

[Ralph Thornton]

Lesley,
Another good piece of work. The textures and patterns in the sand are wonderful.