[basso4735]

Fullsize Here

Basically I thought the clouds looked amazing, but my issue is with the foreground. I'm unsure if a crop would be better or what. I could bring up the exposure in the foreground, but it really isnt very aesthetically pleasing so I'm wondering if it being underexposed works here.

Thanks

[jct us101]

It's Ok, I guess, I don't really like the visibility of the sun in it though, but if you crop that out then you don't really have a subject. I think this is the kind of thing that really only works in HDR, this is nice though, and I suppose if you just crop out the foreground then you might be able to do something with the clouds themselves. I would recommend a black and white though for it.

[basso4735]

It's Ok, I guess, I don't really like the visibility of the sun in it though, but if you crop that out then you don't really have a subject. I think this is the kind of thing that really only works in HDR, this is nice though, and I suppose if you just crop out the foreground then you might be able to do something with the clouds themselves. I would recommend a black and white though for it.

Thanks for your input. Like I said though, the foreground was "ugly". I could have done HDR but I didnt want detail in the foreground at all.

[Tuner571]

I really like the detail in the clouds, but that is pretty much it. There is absolutly no detail in the foreground and the only way to get that in a photo like this is to use HDR as jct mentioned.

[basso4735]

I really like the detail in the clouds, but that is pretty much it. There is absolutly no detail in the foreground and the only way to get that in a photo like this is to use HDR as jct mentioned.

Thanks. I understand theres no detail in the foreground. Basically what I was asking is if the foreground being completely underexposed works more than say cropping it out. Sorry if I was unclear.

[rparmar]

I would go further. Paint in the entire foreground black so it acts as a silhouette. That sprinkling of white horizontal blobs is distracting otherwise.

[basso4735]

I would go further. Paint in the entire foreground black so it acts as a silhouette. That sprinkling of white horizontal blobs is distracting otherwise.

Good idea.


Fullsize

[AOShep]

The box at the top of the tree line is unnatural and a distraction. You could clone in a tree silhouette over it or hang on to this one for when you need good clouds in another picture.

[jct us101]

That looks a lot better, but I still don't like the top of the sky in it that has the sun visible. It's just too distracting, and takes away from the clouds that you're trying to enjoy in this.

[johnmflores]

Don't you just hate it when you're in a place that you think is so photographable yet you struggle to capture what you are seeing and feeling. That's especially true in challenging lighting situation like this.

A couple of things to try:

1 - You've made an interesting decision to shoot portrait instead of landscape. Why don't you try exaggerating the effect by making the composition even more vertical. Try cropping left and right, or just from the right until the image feels tall and the clouds recede from nearly straight overhead into the distance.

2 - Because of the bright sun, the rest of the image is a little underexposed. I'd like to see more form and detail in the clouds. You may be able to recover some detail and reduce contrast a little by creating an HDR from a single image. Simply make two copies of the image and overexpose one by a stop (or a stop and a half) and underexpose one by a half stop. Bring the three images into an HDR program and slide the sliders until you get something interesting. I did that to the following image and was able to salvage something from it:



Good luck!