Sirens' Enchantment

[Slowboat]

Something a little bit more upbeat and warming compared to my previous post. Camera facing North West, scene is a sunset with a perfectly cloudless blue sky with evening fog rolling in, yuck yuck yuck! So how does one handle it and yet hopefully come away with a striking image.
Image Details:

• Singh-Ray Gold/Blue Circular Polarizer – pumps up the contrast between the warm and cool tones nicely (one of my favorite B&W tools)
• Sing-Ray Reverse Spilt ND – slightly darkened sky while pushing down highlights along the horizon and middle ground.
• B+W 10 Stop ND filter – 594s long exposure to smooth out the incoming tide.

Photoshop Edits:

• Cloned out two small buildings at the horizon far right.
• Black to Transparent Gradient on a new layer with Overlay Blend mode to darken and even out the blue portions of the sky, Red Channel blurred 200px as a mask (JPG conversion blocks up gradients, bad for web viewing).
• Selective dodge and burn on foreground rock to give more volume and shape to it
• Selective dodging on middle ground rock.
• Curves Layer to push water highlights and accent path from foreground to background.

Sirens' Enchantment

[pnf]

Nice post work this is a striking piece and the title is pretty cool too.

[wes]

David, truly a mysterious mood with a calm before the storm kind of feeling to it. Your title reminds me of Ulysses passing through the fog on one of his travels and especially dealing the the Siren. Love the overall quality of this shot. An opposite feeling from what I said before is that this is also a very calming image to look at. Like being on a raft and slowly rocking and taking a nap.

Love it.
Wes

[Becky]

This is a lovely, peaceful image and black and white is part of the ticket.
I find it much more peaceful than what I expected: "sirens".
Becky

[RhodeRunner]

I really like the texture you were able to coax from the closest rock. My eye likes to travel from ther to the next rock and then my imagnation takes me out to the horizon. There is alot to explore! Nice image.

[jhoweaa]

I really like how the distant island appears to be rising out of the mist/fog. I also like how the sky is darkened at the top of the image. Nice detail close up.

[Phil Hanlon]

David,

This is another fine image. I like everything about it, and appreciate the effort you put into it to get it how you envisioned.

I do have one nit pick and that is I have a hard time getting past the first rock. I seem to get stuck at the bottom of the image. Maybe a little water between the rock and the bottom of the page would help. The bottom rock is more defined than the rest of the image, so my mind sees this as the main subject.

As usual, just one mans opinion.

I am a great fan of your work.

regards,

Phil