15 August 2013

The Danxia landforms

The stunning Danxia Scenic Area in Zhangye City, northwest China's Gansu Province. Danxia, which means rosy cloud, is a special landform formed from reddish sandstone that has been eroded over time into a series of mountains surrounded by curvaceous cliffs and many unusual rock formations. Picture: CATERS
I've seen many images of the Danxia landforms over the years.  I presume that some have been subtly altered, or perhaps photographed using HDR imaging.  This particular image is one of The Telegraph's Pictures of the Day.

5 comments:

  1. Crank up the saturation to 11. Here's a more accurate image of those badlands:

    http://www.beijinghikers.com/explore-china/view/236/zhangye-danxia-landform-gansu-october/

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  2. We have our own version in the United States, the Painted Hills Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in Oregon.

    http://www.nps.gov/joda/planyourvisit/painted_hills_unit.htm

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  3. I've not heard of this place, and the photo is so stunning, I, too, thought it had to be oversaturated.
    Thanks to the other commenter for the more realistic photos. I was going to say, that scene looks way too much like my childhood mental image and expectation of what the Painted Desert in Arizona was supposed to look like, derived from old cartoons. I love the Painted Desert now, of course, for just the way it is, but it never did quite match those earliest desires for bold, high contrast colors like in this photo.
    Hope to get to see those John Day Fossil Beds, too, one of these days. They look very interesting.

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  4. The color saturation wars continue.

    You have to feel sorry for landscape photographers who are not willing to slide those Photoshop controls to warp levels. They are loosing out to the hyper-saturated, brighter, sharper, push it beyond real photographers.

    I refer to this style of photography as the "not on this planet" style.

    Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The fact that this photo came from the Telegraph should say it all. I've always described HDR oversaturated photography as "clown vomit". No matter what manipulation we have at our command, it is hard to improve on good 'ol Mother Nature.

    ReplyDelete

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