Hoshedar Cooper
January 2025 - Magnificent Kodi
About the Image(s)
I recently visited a hill station Kodaikanal in South India in the state of Tamil Nadu. Kodi is at a height of 7,000 feet and is very scenic. I am not a great fan of landscapes as I believe there is not much one can bring to the beauty of nature. One is merely reproducing what nature created. However, I wanted the opinion of the members of the group if landscape is an interesting genre and if there is anything that I was able to do well and more importantly could have done better in my image. Given the height of Kodi, one observes some clouds which are below the vantage point and some which are higher. This gives an interesting perspective from a landscape point of view.
This was taken with my Z9, F10, ISO 400, 28 mm focal length and white balance as Kelvin at 9,000.
This round’s discussion is now closed!
10 comments posted
Landscape photography might be just capturing nature, like you said, but the images allow others to see places and the time of day, weather conditions, and time of year that they may never be able to see.
You added a lot by taking the image at sunrise or sunset and using a good Kelvin temperature. Your artistry showed up in the exposure that you used, and the composition to include the tree leaning into the image on the far right. I like the image very much, and would not change a thing. It could be used on a calendar.
Posted: 01/18/2025 16:34:42
You added a lot by taking the image at sunrise or sunset and using a good Kelvin temperature. Your artistry showed up in the exposure that you used, and the composition to include the tree leaning into the image on the far right. I like the image very much, and would not change a thing. It could be used on a calendar.
Posted: 01/18/2025 16:34:42
Thank you Tom. Much appreciated. Posted: 01/30/2025 03:31:26
I agree with Tom, landscape photography allows us all to travel in our minds to locations we might otherwise never see. And every moment is different in time and light allowing for an infinite variety of images and their expression.
You have captured the vastness before you with a beautiful image. I agree that the clouds above add to the interpretation of sunlight in the image. I recently shot many sunrises and sunsets in South Africa and struggle myself with how much light and detail to bring out in the foreground. Your composition with foliage and peaks in the foreground add to the perception of distance overall. Nicely done. Posted: 01/20/2025 12:34:44
You have captured the vastness before you with a beautiful image. I agree that the clouds above add to the interpretation of sunlight in the image. I recently shot many sunrises and sunsets in South Africa and struggle myself with how much light and detail to bring out in the foreground. Your composition with foliage and peaks in the foreground add to the perception of distance overall. Nicely done. Posted: 01/20/2025 12:34:44
Thank you Tomi. Posted: 01/30/2025 03:31:55
OK. Beautiful place and image looks technically good. I am no landscape expert so do feel free to disregard my comments. Immediately when I opened the photo I didn't know what the subject was meant to be: there were three. Trees on the left, trees on the right and a lot of sunset sky (albeit dramatic and beautiful). The almost-half-way up crop also felt unnatural. Sooo....I took the liberty of getting the horizon on the 2/3 line, and then added a vignette rather more on the right than on the left to make the left hand side more clearly the main focus on the image, which we can then 'read' in the usual left-to- right way.... See below. Posted: 01/23/2025 09:27:19
I agree Judith and considered what you have stated as regards the splitting of the image in half. Problem is with the lens that I had at the time this was the best I could do to get the trees on the left and right, the higher up brightly lit sky and the lower down white clouds. I liked the overall scene presented by nature and did not want to eliminate any aspect of what I saw. Honestly I did not understand the vignetting bit in your comment. Thank you for your inputs. Posted: 01/30/2025 03:36:14
I just darkened the edges, especially the right hand front corner, so the brightest part was top left and the darkest part bottom right. I just thought it guided the eye more... As I said, just my twopennyworth and, as you said, sometimes you use the kit you have as well as you can! It does look wonderful there I must say....! :) Posted: 01/30/2025 05:31:23
Hoshedar - what you did well was to capture the scene the looking down on a cloud cover with hilltops piercing the cloud cover always adds a ton of visual interest. This is one of those shots that doesn't have a clear center of interest because it appears the entire scene is your COI - And as far as what you could do to improve the image, see my Visual Feedback - I wanted to "see" more of the scene so I opened the shadows in LR, enhanced and denoised and then took the image into Color Efex Pro (Nik Suite) and added Tonal Contrast and the Skylight filter to help the image pop and then added a very slight vignette and increased the exposure - btw - I agree with Judith about the crop, I did the same thing before I read her comments Posted: 01/24/2025 10:06:14
Thank you Butch. What you have done has certainly improved the image many times. I will try doing the same in PS to see if I achieve the same results. Not sure I know if there is a facility in PS to add Skylight filter or is that something restricted to Nik Suite? Thank you for the education. Much appreciated. Posted: 01/30/2025 03:39:07
I can't answer that - I'm far from a PS expert, which is why I use the NIK suite quite a bit - but Color Efex Pro in the Nik Suite can be very useful Posted: 01/30/2025 08:46:34