• A. P. J. Abdul Kalam.

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Recently, I have had some time and opportunity to brush up on some of my photoshop skills and I decided to go over some of the old shots to see if there are photos that were left without processing. While processing, I sometimes discard images that don’t look natural and usually it's my limited abilities with photoshop that is to blame. So since I learned some new skills, I visited some of my old shots and some of them turned out really good.

This is an old shot from Joshua Tree National Park. This is one of the first National parks we visited after moving to the west coast. This shot was taken at Dante's peak with the smoke from the wildfires in nearby areas contributing to some color. This shot is a combination of about three images that were exposed for dark, mid and high tones and then blended together using luminosity masks. I tried HDR on this shot but the added noise and the garish colors that resulted from HDR never satisfied me. But, now I believe this photo truly depicts what we experienced, and I am proud to post it on Flickr.

• Conrad Hall.

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This was the shot I went to Keys Point for and I am extremely satisfied by the way it turned out. I was a bit skeptical about this location after reading about the smog and the mountains which usually hides the sunset from view.

I didn’t had much luck scoping out other locations using Google and we were pretty tired by the time so we just decided to just stick to what we knew. Fortunately the sunset was perfect and looked spectacular. It was a challenge to get some foreground interest without getting any of the tourists in the frame but I placed myself pretty much at the edge of the viewpoint and managed to snatch this shot. All your comments and encouragement are greatly appreciated. Hope you all have a great weekend..

• Nathaniel Hawthorne.

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I was pretty much blown away by this sight at the keys View Point . This streaking of sunlight through the mountain peaks happened just as I was about to leave and fortunately I had the presence of mind to set the camera and shoot away as this only lasted a couple of minutes. Unfortunately I still had my polarizer on the lens and got a bit weird sky but the rest of the picture came out so nice I really don’t care. I hope the next time I am at this place I can be better prepared and hopefully I will get one of those rare smog free days.

• Ellen Glasgow.

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Key’s view is one of the underrated gems of the Joshua Tree National Park. Part of the Hidden Valley section of the park, the southwest exposure, provides a promising outlook point towards the Coachella Valley Preserve and Indio Hills. The location makes this viewpoint a spectacular sunset location. There are ample parking and some stunning trails. The trails surrounding the outlook are what make Keys view great. Since it is a desert, the view is in no way restricted, and you are free to wander around and find your compositions.

I used this composition as I wanted to showcase the cracks on the granite rock formation. I was hoping that this composition would balance well with the vast valleys and the distant mountains that are visible on the right. I was not sure if the plan worked at the time, so I didn’t process the image. But every time I was in the folder, if felt an attraction and finally decided to process the picture. It looked like I did a good job getting the exposure right, but I am still not entirely sure about the composition.