GPP - Day 2 and 3 - Landscapes

Well it's been a long and busy two days dedicated to the second of the GPP course I attended and that was David Nightingales landscapes course.  Great course, and I'm sure I can bore you all next time we get together with all the stuff covered but in the meantime here are the assignment shots I took.  There were four assignments set before we headed out into the desert, these were:

1. Silhouettes
2. Sunsets
3. Landscapes with a Prop/Person for Perspective
4. 'The Hero Shot' - What is the desert for you?

I must admit I was a little puzzled about the first one as to how it fit into the course title of 'landscapes' but at the end of the day it was only ever a topic to get us thinking and it certainly did that so it did it's job.  Well here are my efforts:

Assignment 1: Silhouettes
(f5.6 1/1250 ISO200 -1EV, Manuel Everything, Metered off the Sky)
Tried to avoid the same old same old of silhouetting on the horizon against a blank sky and instead used the setting sun reflecting off the dunes.  I swear there is no HDR in this shot (or any of these for that matter)

Assignment 2: Sunset

(f5.0 1/1000 ISO 320 -1EV Metered off the sky)

OK, here I used the silhouetter theme as well as the sunset but there were so few othere features to put in teh foreground.  I thought of also entitling this "Nikon Merecats"

 

Assignment 4: Landscapes - What is the Desert to You

(f4.5 1/8000 ISO800)

What could say desert like a good set of dunes with ugly great quad bike tracks ripped through them, which acted nicely as a leading line literally leading the viewer into the desert.  The vignetting in the shot is not from the lens but added afterwards in the RAW conversion to add impact and draw the viewers eye into the frame.  And yes, we actually had cloud that day, this isn't a cut and paste from elsewhere.

There are two other shots to follow but they require a bit of tinkering in photoshop before they are ready (you'll see why) but one is a second example of Assignment 4 and the other is my efforts for Assignment 3 with the most common desert prop I know (no not a camel).

However, it's getting too late now and I am tired so I'm off to bed and will have to share the other shots another day.  As always comments and critique very welcome.