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Velvia: Ninety degrees from Mount St. Helens

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Ed Leys20479

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Ninety degrees from Mount St. Helens



Okay, "Walking away from Mount St. Helens" didn't go over real well, so it's atonement time. Well, no, this is still not a well executed landscape, but perhaps people will find more of interest in it.

Could be that counts for something.

More documentary footage of the Mount St. Helens area, taken from the same five miles from the crater observation area as the other one. And a bit over eleven years after the first eruption.

From the observation area, this is looking roughly ninety degrees clockwise from the direction of the ex mountain. Looking roughly in the direction that got the full force of the blast.

I'm working real hard (yeah) to keep from showing you any trace of relieving greenery. But there was a bit that could be seen from the observation area, mostly behind ridges. Mostly in the blast shadow. Life hangs on as best it can. And look, towards the lower right, that's the edge of Spirit Lake - see it's less muddy than when it got some of the headlines.

One note: between Fuji Velvia, and a rare application of PhotoShop "auto levels", the scenery as posted could have a lot more sparkle than met the eye.

But I'm sure things are much more verdant now...

Nikon FA; Nikon 28 ~ 85mm f/3.5 ~ 4.5 zoom
 
Hello Ed,

Since I was one of the ones that picked at your previous photo, let me say that there was nothing wrong with it. But your photos generally make me think a bit and that's what you get for making me think. :-)
I always learn a lot with your photos.

Now that the point is hopefully made, let's move on to this one.

It's more to my taste. I really like the layered mountains with a lot of foreground interest to spruce it up a bit.

The perspective is nice too, with that somewhat clear area at the bottom leading the eye to where the goods are.

I think there is another photo in this photo and that would be to use a longish tele to stick with just the layers of mountains and really compress the distance between them. The gradation from deep blue to brown would look kinda nice, methinks.

But the important thing is what you saw and did and such is very pleasing.
Thank you.

All the best,

Alex.
 
Very desolate and lonely Ed. How interesting it must have been to see that. The colors are beautiful Ed.. What a cool feeling the layers of blue give the overall photo..
Nice Ed

Jody
 
Hi Ed,

Looks like one of the early days of 'creation', as it in a certain sense is. Just after the devorce of the land and the water, waiting for the plants, animals... And it will take 'an other day' before the green is there again.

Like the sharpness in the foreground and the blue hazes latting the far away maountains disappear stepwise.

No human to get an idea of the dimensions, but here the landscape itself tell the story of it's dimensions.

jacques
 
Ed,

I don't think you should ever feel like you have to atone for anything...the quality of your posted photographs has earned you enough respect around here, so that people can appreciate your vision even for those photographs whose pleasures aren't so obvious.

But this one...well, atonement ain't so bad if it means you play to the gallery with shots this good every so often. The colors are much lusher, the composition more "obvious", but there are still many subtle pleasures to be gained from exploring. I really like the shades of blue in this shot, and the few traces of greenery are definitely a (small) sign of hope. The ripples of the mountains and the light give this one more texture, without making it appear lush -- we're still reminded that this is an area that's been hit, but that is quite beautiful even with the impact of the blast several years removed.

No added sparkle needed, this is a winner.

Regards,

Robert
Ed Leys said:
Ninety degrees from Mount St. Helens



Okay, "Walking away from Mount St. Helens" didn't go over real
well, so it's atonement time. Well, no, this is still not a well
executed landscape, but perhaps people will find more of interest
in it.

Could be that counts for something.

More documentary footage of the Mount St. Helens area, taken from
the same five miles from the crater observation area as the other
one. And a bit over eleven years after the first eruption.

From the observation area, this is looking roughly ninety degrees
clockwise from the direction of the ex mountain. Looking roughly
in the direction that got the full force of the blast.

I'm working real hard (yeah) to keep from showing you any trace of
relieving greenery. But there was a bit that could be seen from
the observation area, mostly behind ridges. Mostly in the blast
shadow. Life hangs on as best it can. And look, towards the lower
right, that's the edge of Spirit Lake - see it's less muddy than
when it got some of the headlines.

One note: between Fuji Velvia, and a rare application of PhotoShop
"auto levels", the scenery as posted could have a lot more sparkle
than met the eye.

But I'm sure things are much more verdant now...

Nikon FA; Nikon 28 ~ 85mm f/3.5 ~ 4.5 zoom
Click to expand...
 
Hello Ed.

This one has great depth to it. I like the splash of deep blue water in the foreground that echoes the colors in the background. For me this one expresses what a volcanoe can do (more so than the other similar image).

I can imagine the full size version is really quite something.

Best regards
Jim
 
Okay destruction fans, I cooked up a bigger version of this one and am giving you the link:

http://www.blackmallard.com/film/nint1200.jpg

The image part of it is 1200 pixels wide by 795 high, plus a 4 pixel wide dark grey surround. (My normal surround is 2 pixels wide, but you gotta keep things proportional.) Size is some 510 Kbytes.

My recommendation would be to set your screen size so you can see the whole thing at once, without scrolling.

Now, should you choose to look at this one, you will likely see some "grain" in the sky, but you won't really see it in the foreground. Why? What gives? Well foreground complexity would tend to mask the presence of grain to some degree. But recall, this is Velvia, it doesn't know much about grain.

The things is, skies with sufficient moisture are not as "smooth" as you might think. It really contains little micro regions of different moisture levels, different particulate matter levels, different reflections, different refractions. The sky's right, you start picking them up, and "sharpening" tends to accentuate them. (Though I've done some differential sharpening of this version to mitigate the effect.) I don't think it's films fault this time. Sides, I've seen it in digital too.

At least, that's my story, and I'm stickin with it...
 
Thanks Alex,

Well, that other one seemed to be a somewhat difficult photograph for people, that's really okay, but I didn't feel especially "picked on" by you. I might have used some of the mood of you and others though to propel this post into being. Just an artistic focus kind of thing.

Luckily, y'all didn't get a poem. :^)

And I'm thinkin that thinking is quite most coolest. When you say that my photographs make you think, I take that as quite a compliment. And though I have my tendencies, I hope to mix things up a little bit here.

Perhaps by now you've been able to see the bigger one. As a person who has asked in the past for a larger example of something, I suspect you'll take a look.

By the way, there was another post I made where I decided to add a link to a bigger version. You didn't seem to be posting at the time, as I recall, though perhaps you were lurking and saw it. Anyway, look for a post of mine called "Kodachrome: Landscape 8". The link to larger isn't at the thread's head, but it's threaded in there somewhere.

As always, my best,

Ed
 
Hi jacques,

All throughout this area there were regions and sub regions that didn't even have a human scale. The features defined their own scales.

If a person were in this region, and photographed, they might not even be recogniaable as a person - because their stature would be lost in the surroundings, but also because their very life essence would be lost in the surroundings.

Just another view from my eye,

Ed
 
Thanks Robert. I aims to please. :^)

(But perhaps sometimes I don't.)

Thank you for your warm support, it's response like yours that helps assure that I'll likely be posting photographs here for a while. I'm certainly glad you like this one. (and, you see, I did put up a link to a bigger version of this)

Actually, the additional sparkle I was referring to is already in this. Velvia added the color sparkle it is in its nature to add, and "auto levels" (which I don't often use cause it's too automatic and too problematic - but I always check) added the right amount of contrast to bring things out.

And you read it here first, I think I'll put up another post of a photograph I took while I was here.

Of course, my best,

Ed
 
Thank you once again Jim. I hope you've seen that I made a larger size version of this available (four times the picture area - but still 1/20th the pixels of the full scan), it perhaps makes the original post of this look rather unrefined in comparison.

Of course, the whole Cascade mountain range is volcanic in origin. If you haven't been out to it yet, I suspect you'd like it.

My best regards,

Ed
 
Whoa. I love this shot - brings me back to that fateful day. I was waiting at a bus stop in Beaverton when she blew - I went to work, and when I got off everything was covered in soot. Haven't been up there for a long time, but this is inspirational...
 
Whoa indeed...

I'm glad you like this , Greg. I'm even more impressed cause it wasn't exactly at the top of the Forum and you had a lot of stuff to sift through to come across this. I don't know if you were trying to track me down or not, but it suits me to feel like you were. :^)

Always my best regards,

Ed
Greg Durrett said:
Whoa. I love this shot - brings me back to that fateful day. I was
waiting at a bus stop in Beaverton when she blew - I went to work,
and when I got off everything was covered in soot. Haven't been up
there for a long time, but this is inspirational...
Click to expand...
 
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