Pics from the USA

[V-Spec]

Just got back from 2 weeks driving around the southwest, still badly jetlagged lol,

Went to Arizona, New Mexico and Utah - I went to a few locations did lots of camping and had a great time in general, been to the southwest 3 times now, will probably do a trip to the west coast next year,

All shot on a pentax 645D with an assortment of lenses,

Toroweap, Grand Canyon, Arizona;

Sunrise

Sunset, from the adjacent side,

Thunderstorm over Toroweap the night before;

Making of one of the above pics;

White sands, New Mexico,;

Spent ages trying to capture the moonrise, but it's such hard work there - coming from a country where the weather constantly sucks, to where the conditions are great most nights - it's overwhelming and I screwed up the moonrise, managed to catch moonset though..

White pocket, Vermillion cliffs wilderness Utah/AZ;

 

[V-Spec]

Definitely a good place to go for landscape shots Any wildlife about?

Lots of lizards, lots of beetles and insects, lots of coyotes etc, I had them howling near my tent at one point, it's chilling when they get going lol.

The problem is that in places like Arizona, in the daytime it's between 38-43 degrees, so everything disappears - most wildlife only comes out at night, with the exception of Lizards who are always around,

In New Mexico, there's a well known bird reserve called Bosque del-apache, check out some of Arthur Morris's work from there - it's eye watering stuff.

 

[V-Spec]

I prefer the tones you got out of film, but they're still wonderful photographs!

I know, I agree to be honest - but the damn stuff (Velvia 50) is simply ceasing to exist, in 5x4 is doesn't exist anymore, in 120 it's rapidly diminishing as quickly as the price is increasing...

I think I need to work on my processing, most of these shots are blends - and to my eyes they all look good, but in the hands of others they'd probably look better, which is interesting as when shooting velvia 50 - I hardly touched the images at all in photoshop..

 

[V-Spec]

Whilst nothing like the real thing it may be worth checking out the VSCO presets as they do a Velvia 50 emulation based on actual film.

Whilst the shots are stunning I do have to agree with GTRacer they lack something from your film landscapes. I think the first of the White Sands photos is amazing.

hmmm now I'm curious, might have to check the VSCO thing out when I get home later!

 

[V-Spec]

Messing around with these Velvia filters, first - here's a legit velvia 50 shot (5x4) from white sands a few years ago, no processing at all - just conversion to JPG and to sRGB;

Here's a digital shot from above, processed normally;

Here's the same shot, but with the VSCO Velvia 50 profile applied (no other processing, except for a resize, 8 bit and sRGB profile applied)

The VSCO seems to work well on some shots, but it totally screws with some pictures - makes them look like a 90s rave poster lol.