Edit Challenge #3: Fountain Geyser

[Andrea B.]

I am late responding to the Edit Challenge because I have just now returned from a sojourn in Yellowstone National Park where being online was not possible unless one wished to fork over $10/day for the privilege. I decided not to do this because being internet-free for a few days seemed like it might be a good thing to try.

My observation about this No Net Interlude was that I did not miss reading "the News" to keep up with the tragic state of world affairs, however I desperately wanted to look up topics in Wikipedia about bison, geysers, thermal springs and other Yellowstone related phenomena. Curiosity can be so easily satisfied these days, can't it? 

I will get an Edit Challenge foto posted very soon after I unpack and unload my filled-up SD cards.

[Andrea B.]

Found a good Challenge for you which was already off loaded onto my laptop.

So, here are four of my tourist snapshots from Yellowstone National Park showing the Fountain Geyser erupting - two landscape and two portrait snaps. These fotos were made with the Df and the 24-70/2.8 AFS. If anyone tells you to leave the zoom at home when touring National Parks containing geysers and bison, do not listen to them. Zoom is the only way you are going to get anywhere near boiling water and wild animals - especially when you have to travel on a tourist bus and thus cannot carry a tripod with a 600mm prime. "-)

The fotos are a bit underexposed because I frequently manage to knock the Df's Matrix metering setting over onto Spot metering. There is a lot of structure in the clouds and rocks. There is less structure in the boiling hot water and steam from the erupting geyser, but I think it can be enhanced a bit.

So pick one of these files and let's see what you can do with it! Crops, detail enhancement, unusual filters -- anything is permitted.  Can one of these fotos work as a straightforward documentary? Is there an interesting abstraction lurking somewhere?

LINK to Dropbox Zip File:  https://www.dropbox.com/s/qiotw0qptsookrl/FountainGeyser.zip?dl=0

Small versions of the originals are attached.

[John Geerts]

Very nice geysers.    I took the last one.   With some detail  

[HCS]

I chose the 2nd one, crop and sorta cross processing

[Bjørn J]

I chose the second one - the hand does it all

[Frank Fremerey]

shoe shot revealed.

Which is better sharpening wise on your screen?

[stenrasmussen]

My humble interpretation:

[Andrea B.]

Frank, that is someone's hat. I'm assuming the hat blew off and landed in the geyser area. It tends to be windy in that location.

I certainly do hope that the hat does not belong to the sunken head of some hapless tourist who wandered into the hot chemicals and disappeared.....never to be seen again.

Your first version seems to show the details a bit better. But the difference between the two fotos is not huge.

[Almass]

Rise and Glow.....

[Frank Fremerey]

Almass. You certainly did shoot the deputy as a side dish.

Andrea. Very good Idea to shoot a set of pictures at us.
Huge room for interpretation.
On my screen #1 is overdone by a serious margin

[Andrea B.]

All interpretations are valid when making Photographic Art.
Sometimes the in-camea shot already is the final version; sometimes it is just the beginning of an artistic journey.

[Jørgen Ramskov]

Tried a few different crops and such:

#1

Untitled by Joergen Ramskov, on Flickr

#2

Untitled by Joergen Ramskov, on Flickr

#3

Untitled by Joergen Ramskov, on Flickr

[pluton]

"Which is better sharpening wise on your screen?"
On the 13" laptop, 800x1280, the first one is sharper-looking small, but when opened in a new window, the the first on looks oversharpened and the second one looks good.

[Andrea B.]

Any more entries? If not, I'll close the Edit Challenge tomorrow.
(Sorry for the delay! Been traveling. Been hosting house guests.)

[Jakov Minić]

my take on the 1st image.