White Sands Sunset

[Doug Sundseth]

Since I just hit 1000 posts, I thought it might be about time to post another critique image. I took this photo last fall at White Sands National Monument, near Alamogordo, New Mexico:



EXIF:

Camera Nikon D7000
Exposure 0.004 sec (1/250)
Aperture f/5.6
Focal Length 170 mm
ISO Speed 200
Exposure Bias -1 EV

I was shooting below the standard light to get the sky colors, which killed the light in the foreground. I pushed that back up in post, but I'm wondering if I pushed the exposure in the foreground enough. (Best seen on black; click through to Flickr and then click again to get to the black background.)

And if you have any other comments, I'd be happy to hear them.

[Krusty79]

I'd like to see more of the sand in the foreground. That would add a third, contrasting element to the shot, as the color and texture of the sand contrasts nicely with the mountains. You didn't bracket your shots? Tsk tsk.

[milosh]

I like the exposure of the sand dunes but the black silhouette is drawing my attention a bit too much. I would like to see exposure of the mountains increased just a bit, but it's evident that you already pushed it up. Not sure what original files you have and what pp techniques you used, maybe it could be pushed a bit more and maybe not.

[Barry Jackson]

The sky is great and I like the ridge line.

I agree if there was a little more detail in the foreground the image would have more depth.

[Rogern123]

I'm not so sure about the sand in the foreground, to me it distracts from the amazing sky - I would see what it looks like with the sand dodged down so it becomes part of the silhouette

[Doug Sundseth]

Thanks for the comments.

The initial version of the photo was almost a complete silhouette below the skyline. I didn't think that this gave me enough foreground interest, so I pushed the sand dunes a bit.

I'm thinking of printing this fairly large, so I'm willing to accept more subtlety than will work online, but my inclination, reinforced by the comments here, is that I didn't go quite far enough on the dunes. I think I might try pushing them harder. I might also have a different exposure from basically the same location in the couple of hundred photos I took that evening.

Thanks for the help.