Saskatchewan Harvest

kanuski · Sep 26, 2014

This is my favorite time of year in Saskatchewan. The dust from the combines helps create some beautiful sunsets.
Any and all C&C welcome.
** Last image in each set added after feedback.
1. One of my favorites. Too much foreground?

2.

3. Not a great shot but I thought it was interesting.

4. I have taken dozens of shots like this already and they are nice but not amazing. How can I make this better? Any ideas?

kanuski · Sep 26, 2014

Better resolution on the Flickr Album.

baturn · Sep 26, 2014

Very nice! I would straighten the horizon in all and #4 would be my pick.

JoeW · Sep 26, 2014

Agree with the leveling the horizon comment. Also, don't center the horizon. Choose what area you want to be the focal point--the sky or the foreground. When you split it nearly equally like you've done it's less powerful.

Great work. Now...good luck surviving winter. And keep repeating to yourself...."at least I'm not in Winterpeg."

Derrel · Sep 26, 2014

Nice shots. I ran a combine for two summers back in the mid-1980's, so I always enjoy seeing shots of combining! The shot with the northern lights is the most differentiated one. I also like the shot of the truck.

And you are right: the dust can create AMAZING sunsets. Just this very summer, I was driving north at sunset time on Interstate 5, just north of Woodburn, Oregon, at the VERY pinnacle of the grass seed harvest. Oregon's Willamette Valley produces the majority of the world's grass seed, and it was HOT that day, with no wind, around 96 degrees as sunset fell. All over the Valley, 3-,4-,5-,and 6-combine crews were madly harvesting grass seed by the tens of thousands of acres. As twilight fell and I drove north on I-5, the MOST-beautiful sunset of the summer fell, with glorious orange and pink clouds to the west. With the airborne particulate matter of the combining having floated aloft, and remaining trapped by the Pacific Coast Range mountains, I saw an amazing sight that is burned into my mind: silhouetted against the setting sun was a grain truck and a trio of combines pulling in to transfer their loads of grass seed to the truck, while in the foreground, an irrigation wheel line's many sprinkler heads irrigated earlier-harvested fields. Oh.My.Gosh. It was a glorious sight!