Columbia River Driftwood Photo

Photographer’s Note

This is a pebbly-beach just off the Columbia River Highway on the Oregon side of the river. This is a huge river at this point (about 30 miles east of Portland). The floating log made a good target for skimming stones at, as there was little chance in reaching the far bank which is my normal target for skimming.

The sky is the original sky, but I've used curves and levels to replicate the effect of a polariser (deeper blue that better balances the colours in the bottom of the image). I left the vapour trail in even though it's very tempting to remove it. With little movement in the upper air, the vapour trails are part of the landscape - there are often a dozen in the sky at any one time.

sevman13 has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

sevman13 (553) 2007-07-01 12:27

hi Robert,

great angle and view here.
DOF and focus is well chosen.
brightness & sharpness is fine as well.

congrats.

Serdar

trinko (2940) 2007-07-01 12:33

great composition and POV. overexposed in places, if you shot in raw you might try processing the shot twice, once for the bright spots and the second for the rest of the image and then combining them

Davidh34 (838) 2007-07-01 12:48

Hi Peter

I'm not sure I could have resisted the urge to remove the vapour trail, though I get your reasoning. Whilst there is some overexposure, it's a lovely clear and crisp image, well composed with the logs on the shore. TFS

Voltri (1724) 2007-07-13 12:44

Hello Robert,
Thanks for detailed critique on my works! Here is my feedback.
When I saw this photo as a thumbnail, I saw a problem: square share don't fit it! Seriously, try to crop and make it vertically-oriented - I bet it will look much better!