Photo Tags : landscape : Photo

This may be a well known Icelandic view, and what a stunning location it is too. But we all know that a nice view isn’t all you need to take a nice photo. The local environment, the weather, the season, the time of day all can influence the atmosphere at a particular moment and bring interest to a photograph. The art is in capturing all of that, composing with those elements in mind; the sand patterns from a less still day, the frosty grass, the cold of this vast expanse… You have managed all of that really well, your composition is beautiful and interesting, easy on the eye, you searched and found the best angle and took the best shot. Out in the field you win full marks. From then on it is a very personal approach. I feel you have taken your image into the surreal, the contrast and textures go just beyond the natural. The digital lab of today brings so many choices and creative possibilities but most often the beauty of nature is best expressed as it really is. Contrast can be adjusted more or less and here or there, density can be added, vignettes created. That atmosphere you so carefully captured can be enhanced, an element in your composition too. There is nothing new there and nothing wrong either, photographers have always developed their negatives and prints with a particular final image in mind, that image which holds attention, creates emotion. At the end of the day it is just down to taste and creative talent. Your resulting image is striking, you came very close, but in this theme of “nature at its best” a softer version would have got further.

Hello my name is Markus van Hauten from Germany. I'm a nature and landscape photographer and very happy, that my image got a "Mark of excellence". Thanks also for the comment from the judge. The picture is not hard post processed. It was a night with sea fog and the black sand was full of ice crystals so I was lucky to find these structures in the sand. Here is my socialmedia account: https://www.facebook.com/vanhautenfotografie/