Ribble Valley and Clitheroe - Manipulated

[Ryewolf]

First off a bit of an explanation, I come from a graphic design background and we were encouraged to look at all art forms througout history. We were also encouraged to push the limits and explore as much or as far as we wanted regardless of media being used....

For those that feel photography should be realistic then that's fine and I have no problem with that; there also maybe those that think heavily manipulated images such as these don't belong in the Landscape Forum, which is also fine by me. However these two images were inspired by the seascapes of JMW Turner, have a look on Google they're quite abstract. That said, I still had to go out and photograph this image and compose in camera the scene I wanted.

These aren't just some potted art filters applied to the original, the first layer was done in Topaz Studio, the second layer was done in Nik Efex (either Silver Efex or Color Efex using individual Control Points) and then blended together. For the colour image I then increased the saturation in the sky and decreased the saturation on the land.

 

[viv1969]

I'd certainly give the colour version wall space.

 

[sirch]

The effect you have achieve is very painterly and because of that I think the colour version works better than the monochrome. The land seems a bit more photo-relaistic than the sky and I am not sure what to make of that, it kind of makes it seem like two different images to me.

 

[ihasa]

I do really like the look of the colour one.

 

[ancient_mariner]

Definitely interesting. I agree that the colour version is the better of the 2, and certainly has a painterly feel to it with very pleasing rendering of the houses and trees in the foreground.

I have problems with the patterns in the sky, which seem to be conflicting in places in terms of the direction of streaks etc, in a way that looks like it was images overlaid, rather than being painted. I also have a problem with the double line along the horizon that looks like 2 images were mis-aligned. This is intended to be helpful, rather than just criticising your work.

 

[Ryewolf]

The land seems a bit more photo-relaistic than the sky

Thanks Chris, yes I noticed that too even though the 'painterly' effect was applied to the whole image.

I do really like the look of the colour one.

Thanks ihasa.

I also have a problem with the double line along the horizon that looks like 2 images were mis-aligned.

I also noticed this, so went back to the original image and re-did the original Topaz filter I used and got the same 'double horizon' effect, so it must be a quirk of the preset itself.

Anyways thanks for all the comments, they've all been very helpful

 

[alfbranch]

I like the mono and would happy if that was all you showed but on this occasion that colour palatte just works better

 

[Ryewolf]

I like the mono and would happy if that was all you showed but on this occasion that colour palatte just works better

Thanks Alf, I did the mono version first and really liked it myself and then I did the colour version and also liked that equally as much and really liked the muted colour palette.

 

[Ryewolf]

Thanks for all the comments, I wasn't sure if this image should go in the Landscape Section or the Creative Photography Section or somewhere else.

Anyway based on all the comments, which were very useful, I decided to try and redo the image based on what members had said. I expected it to be a fairly easy task, but found it very difficult (I obviously did more to the image than I could remember)...

I'm not sure if this image is any better or has different flaws, but here it is...

 

[sirch]

I don't think any of them have necessarily have "flaws", I think people are just expressing opinions about what they see. TBH I think I prefer elements of both, for me the clouds are perhaps a bit too colourful in your reworking. Which do you prefer?

 

[Stephen L]

The more I look at them the more I see the power in the colour version. I do see the Turner influence in it. Probably not how I would process it, but that’s no bad thing! It will look great printed large, on a wall, viewd from an appropriate distance.

 

[LongLensPhotography]

Thanks for all the comments, I wasn't sure if this image should go in the Landscape Section or the Creative Photography Section or somewhere else.

Anyway based on all the comments, which were very useful, I decided to try and redo the image based on what members had said. I expected it to be a fairly easy task, but found it very difficult (I obviously did more to the image than I could remember)...

I'm not sure if this image is any better or has different flaws, but here it is...

I think it is quite interesting take and certainly an improvement over last 2 attempts. I feel the sky and the land feel quite disconnected like they came from two different places and were patched up together. i.e. The styles do not really match up. I hope you will get "there" with this. Maybe you should go all abstract and play the colour angle with something to contrast the blue.

Personally I would try to achieve this through various printing and degrading techniques. Just running 2 filters somehow just doesn't sit well with me, but hey let's hope you will prove me wrong!