Cruisin Down the Great Ocean Road Photo

Photographer’s Note

This is a shot of the Great Ocean Road, between Fairhaven and Lorne, at (I believe) “Big Hill”. This is said to be one of the world’s most scenic roads. We certainly enjoyed it. It tracks very closely to the coast of Victoria from Torquay to Portland. We gave ourselves 3 days to drive from Melbourne to Adelaide, with 1 day from Melbourne to Port Fairy. We hope to be back, and we’ll definitely give ourselves more time.

There is a lot of good information for this trip at: http://www.greatoceanroad.org/index.asp

Workflow was as follow:
Shot in Raw - NEF files adjusted for highlights and shadow
Rotated to level and cropped
Adjusted levels
Adjusted curves
Dodged and burned with overlay layer (5% opacity brush)
Added a layer for sharpening and “over-sharpened” with Smart Sharpen
Modified sharpening with a layer mask (10% opacity black brush)
Saved as a tiff
For this post, further sharpened for the reduced size, framed, and saved as a jpeg

ktanska, gunbud, cherryripe, mvdisco, pablominto, pboehringer, pierrefonds, scobert, vinicio, jusninasirun has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

dinkar (194) 2007-05-28 19:41

Hi John,
An excellent view. The black car is perfectly positioned, but the white car is a little distracting. Still a great capture.
Regards
Dinkar

ribeiroantonio (21859) 2007-05-28 21:02

I have done that same road several times. There are some amazing places along the road and some good beaches too as, for example, Lorne, even if the water is always freezing. By the way, I live in Queensland, where the water is always warm!!! Your POV is excellent and shows very well the difficulty of the road. I also like the technical detail explained in you note. Well done.
Antonio

bracasha75 (21960) 2007-05-29 2:15

Helo John
Exellent shot and everithing is on place
You have made a greath job
Cheers,Braca

fotozon (31) 2007-05-29 2:49

Good shot, I was immediately drawn to the curvey road from the index page. Sounds like you did a lot of work on the pic in the post-processing! My only complaint on this photograph is - "I wish I could see the sky." I'm not sure if you did any cropping or not, but maybe a touch less foreground, and a little sky would be nice. Just my opinion! Cheers, Keith

ktanska (16514) 2007-05-29 3:06

Hi John,
Good viewpoint, The eyes naturally follow the curving road. Cars and curve sign are nice details. I'd like to see the whole curve though, now it 'leaks' out of the frame on the right.
Kari

Dpbours (218) 2007-05-29 5:41

Hi John,

Nice road for a little red sports car. ;-) Sea wind in your hair, a little bit of work to do on those curves. Nice shot! I think it would have been stronger if it had a little bit of sky in it, but I don't know if that would have been possible from your point of view. Still a nice shot!

Greetings, Dennis

Cormac (26449) 2007-05-29 12:37

Great use of the curved road, and the telephoto effect really compresses the distance and makes the curves even more apparent. The cars add a nice touch too. Well done!

turkamerikali (4772) 2007-05-29 17:38

Hi John,
Cool photo from AU.
I like your winding road,bg ocean view,framing,colors and dof.TFS
CT

gunbud (27763) 2007-05-29 20:01

Hi John,
Excellent POV that shows the two cars navigating the windy but beautiful road. I love the closeness of the sea to the shear rock wall.
Regards, Tom

Propofol (1786) 2007-05-30 2:40

Great composition. Well done.

UnTrained (0) 2007-05-30 3:45

Hi John,
the view shows wonderful the curves leading to the water. Good format and composition.
Lieben Gruss, Ulf

cherryripe (18869) 2007-05-30 12:50

Hi John
Excellent pov of this wonderful curvy road. Apparantly when I was very small and going on a holiday with my parents, the whole roof-rack fell off our Renault R4 when going round one of these bends.
I like the inclusion of the bright yellow sign and car next to it. Nice showing just sea in the background too and no sky.
Regards
Nikki

mvdisco (11452) 2007-06-01 12:22

Bonjour John
An excellent view of the zig zag road near the ocean, great capture and PoV. nice colors and shapness, Très jolie photo!.
Mes Salutations.
Michel

pablominto (40402) 2007-06-03 5:32

Hello John,
I agree... highways are interesting subjects!
The curves here add to the attraction...
Good details and fine natural colours in this well composed image!
I'm still wondering what is around the next bend...
Greetings,
Pablo -

pady (4800) 2007-06-11 12:20

This is an excellent composition. The curves of the road create a real harmony in this picture.
Congratulations
Cheers
Pierre-André

hoorge (1434) 2007-06-17 13:06

John,

This definitely may be the best scenic road in the world. I like the way you captured this scene from a height and with the curves of the road.

pboehringer (770) 2007-06-27 10:39

A simple and yet very nice shot, John. I like to see the curves going through the rugged cliffs and nature. Havinf those cars there gives good dynamics. A lower shutter speed might be interesting to give a motion blurr. Just as an idea nothing really necessary.

vedra (0) 2007-06-30 7:17

Hi John,
This is a real eye-catcher with that attractive S-curved road. I imagine it must be great to drive there as you never know what is expecting you behind the next bend.
I like how the ocean is slowly turning pale blue as it approaches the coast.
Vedrana

Zepter (2) 2007-07-04 6:29

Hi!
nice picture with great depth!nice colors!tfs
zepter

mfonda (889) 2007-07-05 9:30

Hi John,

Excellent capture of this road. The lines flow perfectly through the composition. Great balance between land, road, and sea. As for the issue of sky, I think you made the right choice. Leaving out the sky creates a much tighter framing and helps capture the mood I think you were going for. Very well done, thanks for sharing!

-Matt

danbachmann (1682) 2007-07-28 9:17

I like the curves in the frame here. It looks like the waves crashing are a little blown out. Perhaps you could get some detail back using the raw file

pierrefonds (26105) 2007-08-23 4:37

Hi John,

A good POV of the wanding road and of the sea, the photo has a good composition, DOF and nice colors. Thanks for sharing.

Pierre

dareco (17104) 2007-12-11 4:12

I love when roads run along side the water like this , and you have a perfect pov for it. A very beautiful picture!!! TFS

scobert (5333) 2008-02-13 19:55

Hello John,
This is great composition and a textbook example of the famous "S" curve. This looks very much like one of those slick car ads that advertise fancy cars and their new high-tech suspension systems. Some friends of ours drove this highway several years ago and it was one of the highlights of their trip. Great shot!
Stan

vinicio (22334) 2008-02-17 22:56

This is the kind of roads that I much love, every curve is a discovery and to drive is pleasant, beautiful image John, well balanced and inviting to visit the place, compliments.
Have a nice week
Ciao
Vinicio

jusninasirun (10150) 2008-02-21 5:48

Hello John,

I have seen pictures in pamphlets on how scenic is this road. You have included all the elements that make great shot here. The foreground overlooking the road turning behind that big rock making pleasant perspective. Even the road sign is well contrasted with the scene. Everything lead to a wonderful view of the sea. I can see from the work flow that you even shoot landscape in RAW-NEF. That is from a person who demands nothing less than perfection. I can see that you also made some adjustments on curves ( I just can't seem to get my pointer away from this slider). Well done and thanks for sharing this.

Regards,
Jusni