Challenge 14: "So Green Is My Valley" - Winners chosen

[Philip]

Thanks Yildiz - the wine's not that bad either . The man with the broom in the foreground spent most of the time we were watching moving dust around to cover up footprints and tyre tracks and the winery was spotless.

Philip

[Birma]

Many, many fine pictures in this thread - an inspiring topic obviously. I am a sucker for wild flowers so Lonnie's keeps me coming back the most. I am also intrigued by what looks like a steam traction engine in Philip's vineyard picture. Are they still using it?

[aster]

Wine from such a lovely, spotless, healthy-looking vineyard with almost geometrically-arranged landscape can not in any way be bad or mediocre, Philip!

The machinery and the equipment also caught my attention as Birma pointed aalready. This vineyard resembles an open-air museum of wine-production industry with the plants in the background: Very authentic.

Yildiz

[Philip]

The machinery was purely for show - many of the vineyards we visited had such displays - this particular vineyard promoted the fact that everything they did was in line with feng shui principles ( such as wood and water at the front and back of the winery), even to the point that they don't ever pump the grape juice but use gravity instead, having huge hydraulic lifts to move vessels high enough to get a good flow of juice.

Philip

[bakubo]

Not technically a valley, but here is a view into the crater of Diamond Head:

[Lonnie Utah]

[aster]

Thank you everyone!

The challenge submission period is over and we'll soon hear from the judges....


Thanks,
Yildiz

[aster]

Hello everyone and thank you all very much for your invaluable contributions to Challenge 14: “So Green Is My Valley”.


A valley being a piece of geographical land formation that can extend for miles in every direction or be narrow and deep as the local climate and elements shape it into intricate forms requires wide-angle shots that cover the most significant features as a whole and beyond.

Whatever the form, we had some text book-quality submissions by some of our experienced photographers.

The criteria for the selections comprise:

* To see as much of the valley formation as possible with its contained flat, ‘V’ or ‘U’ shaped land features that earned it its innate characteristics and made it a renowned and respected piece of landmark both in the locals’ and in the universal eye.

* To see as wide an angle of view as possible which comprises the sky, the atmosphere, the land’s vegitation, light attributes, season, magic if posssible, grandure, relevancy, sharpness, clarity, and good post-production.


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Our winner is David Kilpatrick with his photo of the Eildon Hills from Scott’s View, the Tweed Valley in the foreground.

This photo has the advantages of a smart time selection both seasonaly and on day basis while also being taken from a favourable height. It pans a variety of vividly-green fields – velvety smooth carpets-which are enjoying the long shadows cast by the bordering deciduous trees which appear to be almost translucent as the bright and strong light rays hit them from the right.

The scenery couldn’t be more real with its obvious man-made agricultural merits and architectural structures while the bright light that’s caught in the haze gives it a magical quality as it veils yet not obstructs the details and the colourful foliage on the smooth heights of the hills in the distance.

It has very vibrant colours, sharp details, and spotless clarity and some magical lighting.

This photo was taken with DSC-R1 but this can only be an added-quality and no compremise to a challenge that Sony’s Alpha bodies are contributing. It can be viewed as a patriarchal contribution even.

Congratulations and thank you for your participation David Kilpatrick. There should be no wonder that this photo is a good-seller !

[aster]

“Photos that qualify in going into any text book, encyclopedia, tourist guide”

The winner is Bakubo / Henry Richardson with his set of three photos that each qualify in defining some of the many valley types: Bacharach am Rhein in Germany; Meteora in Greece and Crater of Diamond Head are all valleys that had a different geological history in their formations.

Valleys, usually accomodating water routes with rich, generous soil embankments have been the reason for humans to start their settlements for convenience and start a better life.

Bakubo’s set of submissions is a testimony to urban life nested in valleys that repeatedly appeared throughout history of men.

Congratulations Bakubo!

You have captured some great settlements that were preserved and been kept from the modern life’s out-of-the-place architectural infestations. Good lighting that help define the many tiny-looking details; sharp and picturesque!

Thank you for your contributions as you brought a new dimension to this challenge: Urbanized yet still so Green Valleys.

Bacharach am Rhein, Germany


Meteora, Greece


Crater of Diamond Head

[aster]

“Nature’s interactions with the valley = prosperity”

The sight which the farmer enjoys on daily basis; as he plants, waits for those rain clouds to shed their loads, reaps the product of his hardship and then stands on a hill to give thanks for the extensive blessings...

What the farmer knows and sees by heart through his endeavours with land, we see through Winston’s photography.
We meet with the Ola Valley Squall, fresh with stubbles yet we see the green crops still waiting for their time on the mild occillation of the hills on the horizon.

A good capture with good diffusion of light, dimensions, depth and warm colours turned all the more semi-dramatic with the awkard arrangement and shape of the clouds in action.

Congratulations and thank you for your contribution Winston.

Ola Valley Squall

[David Kilpatrick]

Well, that doesn't look like crop-bearing land to me. Looks like sheep country (even without sheep). Moss and muir, in Scottish terms!

David

[aster]

Well, that doesn't look like crop-bearing land to me. Looks like sheep country (even without sheep). Moss and muir, in Scottish terms!

David

I really don't know David. We'd have to ask Winston...
Never heard of the term but the Scottish term sounds interesting to the ear!

Yildiz

ps. Maybe I misunderstood and you were speaking of your own photo because then you'd be right of course!

[aster]

“Wonderful valleys with green grandure and beauty that just wouldn’t be contained in one single shot”

Birma takes us to the endlessly-extending Severn Valley with its fertile soil that keeps everything planted on it nourished and healthy.

Congratulations on your beautiful shot Birma! Lovely, deep colours provide a dramatic ‘whithering Heights’ setting which only the human character’s overlooking the valley is missing.

This photo although technically correct would benefit from extra spaces on both left and right sides covering more of the valley. The foreground consumes a very large area of the photo’s estate leaving insuffecient room for what lies beyond the hill.

Thank you for your invaluable contribution Birma. No doubt that we learn from your photos in the styles you approach them.

The Severn Valley, Worcestershire, from the Malvern Hills


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In the same category is Philip’s very neatly kept vineyard on the heels of a hillside.

Vina Montes Vineyard in Colchagua, Chile, is in the appearance of an open museum, with antique steam engine machinery of a certain era, displayed in its courtyard.

The photo conveys the beauty of the real estate to our imagination that’s intrigued by what’s only limitedly contained in the frame. More space would be lovely all around and a less bright time of the day might have reduced the dark sharp shadows while providing more of the vineyard’s details.

Congratulations and thank you for your participation Philip. Always a pleasure to study your photos and learn from them.

Vina Montes Vineyard in Colchagua, Chile


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A crooked small narrow road in the authentic natural setting called Chateauneuf Landscape which Shirley Kilpatrick brought to our attention.

Like the other photos inn this category, it promises beauty but has trouble with the time of day for shooting: the light is too strong and a gradual softness may be due to the evident haze that hides the hills under a thick cover ahead of us.

Congratulations and thank you for your contribution Shirley Kilpatrick.

Chateauneuf Landscape

[David Kilpatrick]

Well, that doesn't look like crop-bearing land to me. Looks like sheep country (even without sheep). Moss and muir, in Scottish terms!

David

I really don't know David. We'd have to ask Winston...
Never heard of the term but the Scottish term sounds interesting to the ear!

Yildiz

ps. Maybe I misunderstood and you were speaking of your own photo because then you'd be right of course!

No, my photo does show arable as well as grazing land. Winston's photo shows upland pasture in a temperate zone, I think; too high for crop cultivation. The peat soil also does not support food crops well, it is generally too acidic and lies in a relatively thin layer over bedrock in this type of landscape.

In my region, there's nothing that can be compared to the experience of Mediterranean or Asia Minor landscape - same for Winston's. It would be easy to interpret 'green' as meaning fertile. The Scottish equivalent of a desert - the peat bog, the moss, the moor (muir) - can be very green. Even our farm land was once impossible to farm. Most of it was only drained 300 years ago, creating fields where bogs and marshes had been in valleys.

If anyone ever tried to drain the moors and uplands, it would cause great damage. We would have disastrous floods. The high ground acts like a huge sponge and soaks up rainfall. It can never be cultivated.

David

[aster]

David;

Now that's a good piece of information and I feel better for learning about the type of top-soil in this sort of land. I wouldn't dream of causing a flood that'll make things difficult for the folks who live there!

Thank you

To everybody who read the comments I made on the photos;
Remember that these comments are from someone who lives in Istanbul and when she travels by road, sees green crop fields extending for miles on smooth hills especially in the inner parts of the Asia Minor. There's almost always farmers on the road heading out to their own fields to check their crops or coming back to their homes in the villages at the end of the day.

Naturally, I must not change the comments I wrote already. But you can go and view the photos of both David and Winston in the light of an other geological truth explained by David...and enjoy.

And you'd think David was an expert solely in photography! (joking...no sarcasm there.)


Thanks,
Yildiz