Lac des Cheserys

Tom Green said:
Nice set, first one for me. I feel the foreground could do with being a tiny bit brighter though.
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It could - and oddly is in the full size file. The tonality gets killed going from 200mb tiff to 1mb jpeg and the careful adjustments given to keep contrast yet show detail have been lost. On the full screen it looks unreal but then you start to pixel peep and realise the location isn't quite the dream that Mr Heaton made it out to be (I was here before him but his video struck a chord). The area is very trampled down, worse than any UK location and in the second shot you can see an ugly eroded scar/hiking path. In the first shot there is unnatural erosion on the LHS of the embankment, again due to hikers and to the left of the Dru an ugly track up the mountain with an even uglier refuge hut.

It's not a lake I will ever go back to.
 
nice photos - i think the Chamonix area is very over-populated and don't often go there - despite living 45 minutes away. There are lots of lovely places in this area that are a lot less popular if you ever want tips... :)
 
Charlotte Wilson said:
nice photos - i think the Chamonix area is very over-populated and don't often go there - despite living 45 minutes away. There are lots of lovely places in this area that are a lot less popular if you ever want tips... :)
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Please do tell me, I was at Lac de Vallon, Lac des Plagnes and Lac de Fontaine last year. I am always on the look out for new places to visit and shoot.

I believe, do correct me if I am wrong, that the Vallee Blanche is one of the most polluted in Europe. I certainly find if I am ever in the city my eyes start to water due to the nasty diesel fumes from buses etc, but I found the same even up at Lac Flegere. I certainly wouldn't want to live in Chamonix but for 3 days photography and walking it's good. But not that lake again, it's been ruined. 100 years ago it wouldn't be so trampled down and Lac Blanc has that utterly hideous concrete hut on it, and there is no composing a nice angle without catching it. The best once is Lac de la Flegere (maybe 20mins walk from the refuge Flegere) but there was a god awful rope and poles around it and it would take hours to remove that in post.
 
Lac des Plagnes is beautiful as is the hike up. My boyfriend picks the hikes and then I just randomly take photos but it helps if you can enjoy a nice day of hiking in the process :)
I know I should go to Chamonix and take photos but I haven't yet. You are right about the Vallee Blanche - it is very polluted in Winter and this is due to the Mont Blanc tunnel - all the lorries sit either side of the tunnel building up a huge amount of pollution, plus the ski traffic - Chamonix is its own worst enemy being the Mountaineering epicentre of France.... I live in Petit Bornand les Glieres so on the other side of that valley towards Annecy and we have a lot less traffic and pollution and if you haven't visited "Les Aravis" then you should definitely put that on your list. An incredibly beautiful area, and a lot less known. Just behind my house is Lac de Lessy and Pic de Jalouvre.

You should also do "Lac D'Anterne" near Sixt Fer a Cheval which is a good 6-7 hour round hike.
I will keep thinking of more hikes....and see if I can dig out some photos...
 
omens said:
Are these the ones on your instagram? Look much better here.
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Instagram is like tiny tiny res and although I applied no IG preset to this (I saved it off here on my phone then posted it) I bet they do something.

If you are using IG you'll be on a phone which will use a different colour profile to your computer so things can look different there, and if the phone has an autobrightness thing then it can all get too dark or too washed out quite easily.
 
wookie6262 said:
Lovely set, it looks an amazing plave and T. Heatons video made me want to plan a visit. This only re-enforces that
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On first impression it is mega but on closer inspection it is not quite the thing you hope it to be. One, there will be someone in your way with a tent - there always is with lakes and mountains. Worse thing is they might be a photographer who gets their mate to "pose" to give a sense of scale or adventure or other such caper. Such a carry on happened but I composed around it. The sad thing is the the path, erosion that the lake shore has. It really spoiled it for me. The other is the hotels, tracks etc on the mountain side and the cable car station and wires on the aiguille du midi (not shown). I blame the 100% mode of the D800/D810 for bothering about the wites, tracks and refuges/hotels/huts on the distant mountains. You don't see it with your eye but when editing at 100% to ensure your shadows etc are all good you see this stuff and it marrs it for you.

Mr Heaton got a great picture of the Dru and one I would have taken but the conditions didn't present any mist to isolated the Dru (what a shot he has of it). I know from his angle his shot is free of any man made objects or influence.

If you do go, the refuge Flegere is good to stay in, neither this nor Lac Blanc are hard to get to on foot, pack a head torch though. You'll need if walking back to refuge Flegere or your car down in La Praz. There are many different photo's you can take here. I have a few I will be posting over the coming weeks.
 
omens said:
Are these the ones on your instagram? Look much better here.
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I can't see any difference on proper screen. Many mobiles if you are making yourself suffer browsing through tiny screen force super vivid screen profile. My old motorola at least allows to turning it to normal but very few would even thing about looking for it.

On that thought more saturation here wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.
 
LongLensPhotography said:
On that thought more saturation here wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.
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ActuallyI think it might be - to be fair you don't see the full res ones but the green embankment is totally in shadow. Green as we all know is one of the hardest colours to manage - too much saturation you get that radioactive over luminous look and the tell tale signs are always in the greens in the shadows. At 100% view the greens to my eye look totally natural - even in the shadows. The blues look fine, maybe the yellow channel could take a bit to give the hill side more luminosity but you can see a haze that softens the whole scene.

I might do a B&W version of these - the sky is very nicely textured with interesting clouds and with the jaggy peaks there could be some nice mono work to do. That's a project for the winter maybe.
 
"Excellent" set of images Sir, and well presented.(y)

George.
 
All nice but third one is great Steve.

The only thing I can offer, is if it was me I'd spend the time with the clone tool removing those blurry dark dots in the foreground water.
 
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