Blea Tarn

Inspired by the excellent image recently shared by Jules - took a drive up to Blea Tarn on Sunday. Suffice to say, the weather I experienced was more the norm

Anyway - here are a few shots in typical lakes weather.

Langdale



Blea Tarn 1



Blea Tarn 2




Blea Tarn to Langdale



As alweays C+C welcome

Carl

They're all very good Carl, really like them, but the last one beats them all! Yes, I know the large tree on the right is cut off, but never mind, thats the shape of the sensor isn't it ... What I enjoy most about the last one is the way it draws you in and through, sort of curving from the foreground rock left around the shore and onto the distant mountains.

It seems to have some softness in the middle left side of the frame, which is odd as the foreground is sharp, and so is the far end of the lake?

The other 3 are all classic-type views, all beautifully framed and laid out.

As I've said before to our Mr Storm with lakes shots with this sort of sky, I do find the cloud shadow areas annoying ... it seems to me that the tonal balancing carried out on the skies has pulled down the shadow levels too far, causing an unrealistic near-blackness. I appreciate it may be perceived to add 'drama' or something artistic like that, but really ... if these clouds looked like this then I think you'd have needed more than any Weather Resistance could offer to save you from what was coming!

And finally ... I know, I know, shut up Nigel , the Langdale Pikes have taken on a blue cast and lost contrast - it just needs them selected, a contrast boost and pull off the cyan / blue channel - if you're lucky there might be some yellow left in there to extract which would even up the colour balance across the whole scene nicely.

Thanks for showing us these inspiring and thought-provoking photos

A beautiful location captured very well indeed.

Thanks for your comments Nigel

can't explain any softness in the area you describe

Re the skies - yes - we all know your view on dark and moody clouds

Personally - I like dark and moody clouds in the right context but will be the first to admit that I sometimes get a bit carried away

Re the Langdale shot - I have tweaked it as you suggested (plus a few other minor adjustments)- and just for you - calmed the clouds down a bit - see what you think




Carl

Thanks for taking on board the ideas ... the clouds are an improvement I feel - yes, I'd go even further with it and lift the blacks more (leaving the mids and whites exactly as they are of course) - but its your call! and it is a great sky

I may not have been clear enough on the Langdale Pikes, sorry - I didn't mean the whole mountain range in your first shot. That has removed too much colour in total, leaving it looking sort of duo-toned, not the effect you intended I think. I was really just looking mostly at the 2nd, 3rd & 4th ones where the Pikes in the distance are a different tone to the closer hills - they have a cyan / blue cast and have lost contrast - it was just those little areas I was thinking about.

The mountains in your first one look great I think - a little mono in tone, which is nice - perhaps you could pull out a little more yellow / green?

Hi Nigel

Yes I did misunderstand you on the colour channel comments - and no I didn't intend a duo-tone effect, although bizarrely - the more I look at it - although it is a little odd - I quite like it

Will re-visit all later

carl

I'll stick with the original, thank you.

How about you give us the clouds on the 2nd with the mountains of the first? Then we might all be happy !

Well you found it in the end Carl! Well done!
Good effort on all of em there, often I use a grad in the sky part of my shots to hold the light back and inevitably this leads to clouds that get overly dark and like you I tend to just leave em as they add to the drama but Neil has a point, clouds don't tend to get right to black but I have seen them get pretty near to this at this very location, so it is not totally unrealistic. It can be a hard balancing act on that scene in the afternoon because your starting to look into the sun and there is always some bright part to the sky, and it's really difficult to hold all the detail, darkening the clouds acn be the only option. Unless you are prepared to spend time blending and cloning and ending up with a result that looked nothing like it was when you shot it...

An aside Rant Aimed at nobody in particular:

Youtube has a lot to answer for, I have watched an awful lot of very very good American Landscape Photographers do talks on Adorama and B&H and lost respect for most of them. They tend to blend like it's going out of fashion, go out and take pictures of skies to put in shots later, replace a sky at the drop of a hat, and even add foreground rocks and features that were never there! I'm not against tinkering nor giving mother nature a helping hand to look her best but if you completely change the shot that you saw at the time, what was the point in going? I begin to doubt that anywhere in America actually looks like it appears to anymore...


Now these are black clouds!

Last attempt Nigel - original with lighter clouds.

As for the other images - I had a play with them but to me the originals looked better - so have left them alone

...and I still prefer the version of this one with darker clouds

Carl

Jules

Yes - I too use grads for this sort of shot - the one in question had a Lee 0.6 attached.

I will always take on board C+C and try to learn from it. I think what I have learned this time is that many things - including cloud colour - are down to personal preference rather than there being a right or wrong.

I like dark clouds - there I have said it

Carl

I'm interested to read Nigel's views on clouds and I don't think that in general the skies on my landscape images are overdone. The main reason for using ND Grads (for me) is to balance the brightness of the sky and avoid overly heavy shadow areas on the landscape. If course it also enables flexibility on how to process the skies. I often remove some of the cyan / blue tinge that a ND Grad can emphasise, but only in an effort to retain the realism of the cloud colours. I have been criticised on some images for the clouds looking too grey and not blue enough!

On these shots I prefer Carl's originals, yes the clouds are dark but they often are in the Lakes! There is some slight softness to the middle and far distance, I'm not sure of the cause but it may just be the result of re-sizing for this Forum. I too like the last one the best; the composition is lovely.

Regards
David

I prefer the originals. Lovely set. More envy .

I like 'Blea Tarn 2' best, the composition is superb.

Really like this set, particularly the dramatic skies and range of compositions here. Number 4 Is my pick - as it's a rather different composition than the normal 'down by the water shot ' I've seen ( and taken :blush of the tarn. I like the framing using the trees, and the way you've positioned the Pikes. Clever.