The Weekly Landscape Thread

This weekly thread, starting on a Friday, allows us to showcase our Landscape photos and get some feedback.
Opening up discussions, not only on content, style, composition & techniques, but also on the emotion in the image, and of course about the place itself.

It’s easy to participate

Post an image or short essay with a title and description. To make it easier to view in the forum, all comments should include the original title and at least one of the original images as a quote.

Thread Guidelines:

1. This thread is for sharing and developing our Landscape photography skills.
2. Entries can be a single image or a short photo essay (2 to 10 connected images that tell a story).
3. Give your entry a clear title and perhaps also explain why you took it, or the story it tells.
4. Provide constructive feedback on others’ images/essays.
   Try to go beyond simple praise or dismissal and explain why you like it, or what caught your eye.
   ”Likes” are encouraged too.
5. Negative feedback and suggestions are also OK (be polite, honest, and constructive).

Giving feedback is just as important as receiving feedback, both help to improve our artistic and technical skills.

What is a Landscape photo?

This means different things for different people. For me, it includes a wide range of photos taken outside,… from wide sweeping vistas to smaller details found along the route. Seascapes, landscapes, cityscapes, woodland shots, landscapes at night with some stars, and lots more are all OK. They could also include man-made objects and people or animals outside, but they are not usually the main subject. Show us, with your photos, what Landscape photography means to you.

Motivation

I love to go hiking in the natural world and capture photos along the way. It keeps me fit (physically and mentally) and provides some beautiful memories. Processing those images when I return is fun too, it often helps to enhance what I saw.

Downloading and reposting

It’s often challenging to verbalise comments about images. Instead, it’s sometimes easier to “show.” Unless the original poster specifically states otherwise (in each original post), participants are free to download, alter, and repost images in replies to express their analysis and critique. The reposted image may remain permanently or be removed after a short period. Downloaded and altered images shall not be used for any other purposes or uploaded elsewhere.

Enough said,… Go out, enjoy the open air, take some photos. Bring back the memories and post them here in the Weekly Landscape Thread 😊
...looking forward to seeing your images

Romantic forest light

A woodland shot taken in our local forest in Pilsbach over 10 years ago on new year's day and it still remains one of my favourites. I’ve been back along this path many times and sometimes it looks just as nice as this day. Light is one of the key aspects in a landscape (or any) shot and the light was really good on that day.
On a technical note, despite the “good light” it’s still fairly dark in the forest, so a tripod with a longer shutter speed helped get lots of light onto the sensor and so keep the noise low without raising the ISO and losing the DR

Lens:Sigma 17-50 /F2.8

the Portal

This picture was taken close to where I took the landscape foto 2 weeks ago. This was the result of another little stroll there. There's also a little lake on the way. The water is really turquoise and sometimes it's an almost perfect mirror. That day, the sun behind the mountains cast an evergrowing shadow of the peaks on the clouds and fog above the mountain. Giving the illusion of a second larger mountain behind it.

Funnily enough, touching up some oldies today for a bit more storm in the clouds.
Old coal mine Wonthaggi. Zoom in rust lovers !
[ A7RIVa + 50mm F2.5 + C1 - F5.6, 1/250th, ISO 100, Exp +0.3 ]

Interesting.
…well this place has seen better days. At least the fence looks new around the old ruin. There’s a sign on the fence that says “DANGER unstable mine shaft “, maybe that explains why it’s not been worked on and demolished completely ? Although, with the enhanced storm clouds in you photo, it looks it’s all just about to be blown away anyway 😊
Nice to read that there is now a wind power station at Wonthaggi, so much better than coal!

"Upper Falls"

Taken on Senic Creeks, a branch of the North fork south Branch of the Potomac river in West Virginia.
Mamiya RB67, PanX developed in Rodinal 1:100.

Truman

Last week's discussion about color vs monochrome in relation to photographing the Badlands areas had me digging in the archives to my own trip there, and some of the photos I took that I thought turned out OK (considering the limitations of the camera I had then) in either. Most of the landforms in Badlands NP are less colorful than the ones in the red-rock parks like Arches or Bryce though some are pretty wildly colored. Early morning or late afternoon light helps bring out the color in the duller ones. These are just the average mud colored formations, but sunset light helped a little.

It must have been a wet spring. In 2023 there was a wet spring in South Dakota, and the badlands were still fairly green in late July when we were there. The sheep were everywhere. They didn't have to work to find good grazing. However, nothing like above. We are headed to the North Dakota badlands this summer, Theodore Roosevelt NP and the Little Missouri river runs through so I expect more foliage and more interest in color. I'll still do it in B&W, but my wife will do most of it in color. She hasn't come over to the "dark side" yet. 😉

It must have been a wet spring. In 2023 there was a wet spring in South Dakota, and the badlands were still fairly green in late July when we were there. The sheep were everywhere. They didn't have to work to find good grazing. However, nothing like above. We are headed to the North Dakota badlands this summer, Theodore Roosevelt NP and the Little Missouri river runs through so I expect more foliage and more interest in color. I'll still do it in B&W, but my wife will do most of it in color. She hasn't come over to the "dark side" yet. 😉

It must have been a wet spring. In 2023 there was a wet spring in South Dakota, and the badlands were still fairly green in late July when we were there. The sheep were everywhere. They didn't have to work to find good grazing. However, nothing like above. We are headed to the North Dakota badlands this summer, Theodore Roosevelt NP and the Little Missouri river runs through so I expect more foliage and more interest in color. I'll still do it in B&W, but my wife will do most of it in color. She hasn't come over to the "dark side" yet. 😉

It must have been a wet spring. In 2023 there was a wet spring in South Dakota, and the badlands were still fairly green in late July when we were there. The sheep were everywhere. They didn't have to work to find good grazing. However, nothing like above. We are headed to the North Dakota badlands this summer, Theodore Roosevelt NP and the Little Missouri river runs through so I expect more foliage and more interest in color. I'll still do it in B&W, but my wife will do most of it in color. She hasn't come over to the "dark side" yet. 😉

Paths I've taken

Shots from one climb to mountain on my last day of visiting Lapland. It was quite steep and constant climb over 200 meters of rise in 1.5km, not easy as we were using snowshoes, but views were well worth of it! 5 years ago storm break many trees and old road to top of mountain was closed due to danger and new road was created instead. If was relatively empty place, I saw only 2 groups of other people there, unlike some of more popular mountains.

Thusly ? Well picked up, AI strayed a little far !

Mine wise, it's the usual dour history. Coal was for the Victorian Railways but the murky contractual maze killed it off eventually. The mines extended below the sea in places, so a delightful work place, the pit ponies had it even rougher, apparently. The region is dotted with old works and Miner's Cottages, some transported amazing distances.

Continuing my recent shots here from the iron ore country of Australia,

Ore Train at Sunset. Port Hedland.

This interesting & intriguing image gets you thinking about what we are looking at here. Certainly confusing at first with strange things going on in the sky and then made even more tricky by viewing them all upside down in the reflection 😊

Another good B&W image. The rocks look like a coal face glinting in the sunlight. The falling water is made brighter by using the slow Shutter speed "silky-water" effect and that provides some good contrast to the dark rocks. Maybe the bright foreground rock could be made just a touch darker ?

The image is composed nicely to show depth, coming from the distinct layers of foreground, midground and the mountainous background.
Both the B&W image and the colourful image are good, but in different ways.
In the B&W shot the white flowers provide a good looking contrast, and are the element that probably “makes the shot work”. But with the yellow showing in the colour shot they become instantly recognizable as “sunflowers”. Also nice to see the "sandy mud colour" of those badlands.