+++ The Weekly Landscape Thread - #12, 2025.04.25

The sunstar in the second is good. I see you used the old trick of closing the lens down and putting the sun half behind a branch. Works well and looks good :-)
Woodsider already mentioned the crop, maybe a more radical crop would bring out the beauty of sun star even more?

That springtime blossum is beautiful!
So many different shades.
I think I like the last one best in this set.

That is wonderful scene. Love the way the sunlight is picking out that meadow in the middle.
The contrast, saturation, brighness and the warmth are all increased by the sun in that area.
When my daughter sees something like this, she'll say in a deep voice "God bless this land, especially that bit over there!" :-)

Its especially impressive when the sun shines through a hole in the dark cloud cover. Well caught!

Cool!
A very moody shot. B&W helps with that too.
You can see the rain is already on the way.

Interesting formations! The image, or perhaps just the sky, feels a bit dark to me, although I think the sun was shining ?

Strangely, making the sky brighter didn't seem to help much, but if I make the sky even darker it starts to work better for me.

The Turkish flag certainly shows where we are here. It's nicely placed in the image.
...after seeing the photo of the Approaching storm from Woodsider this week, it almost looks here, like your speeding away from such a storm ;-)

The curse of the American West in the summer. There were some massive wildland fires to the West that turned the sky a smokey gray blue. There were some clouds - but they were not obvious.

Actually it's the colour version 😁

Then it was truely a B&W day!
:-)

I guess this is an unusual landscape photo but it certainly shows the area well.
Looks like the old bus is slowly rotting away and hasn't been used for quite a while. The sign with the "X" looks like a railway crossing but I can't see any tracks?
Not sure that I'd want to live here, the area looks brown and all burnt from the sun, no lush vegetation here :-(

Silverton is an area much used in films. The Mad Max series was mainly shot around here. I'll be posting more in some of the other threads, including remnants of Mad Max vehicles.

I wrote a lengthy piece and lost the lot with a net disconnection. So some random notes.
1. Frothy new growth with the hulking mountain and still ominous clouds behind. There's a very nice diagonal line from the bottom right and continued in the light/dark cloud demarcation.
2. A nice study of a tree battling its instincts, the terrain and gravity. Puffs of white everywhere unifying things.
3. The new leaves add a confetti like sprinkling of joy to the sombre forest.
4. You are right about the impact of adding people. They may be small but the story of the image is immediately changed. Now we are looking at their journey and experience along the inviting path.

These are all lovely as standalones or as a set. The second is particularly compelling with its rich colors and that beautiful tree set at an angle on the hill.

When I first got into photography I wanted pure landscapes and would wait impatiently for people to move out of the frame. Over the years I've come to like including people and now I wait impatiently for the right person to move into the right place. I prefer to keep them small in the frame like you have here. I keyword them Little People, Landscape in my catalogue. I don't think they necessarily become the subject.

Quite an interesting tree with its tilted shape and twisted limbs. On a gloomy day with darker atmospherics it might look pretty spooky. Nicely caught sun star.

More beautiful trees. Gorgeous colors. The second is my favorite. I'm usually not a fan of urban landscapes, but this one is so delicately pretty I can't resist it.

Beautiful and so so moody. You used the drama of the storm to simplify the composition instead of complicate it, so the opposite of what dramatic storms usually provide. It worked very well here. A backdrop for Macbeth. I loved the Scottish highlands.

Thanks, I am always grateful for dappled light in the early morning. It looked like a big quilt laid out over the valley.