After the storm

Critique Style Requested: Standard

The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.

Description

After the storm - the sky was clear blue day before and the day after this storm. No often do I experience low fog like this.

Technical Details

Taken with cell phone.


Critique Template

Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.

  • Vision and Purpose:
  • Conceptual:
  • Emotional Impact and Mood:
  • Composition:
  • Balance and Visual Weight:
  • Depth and Dimension:
  • Color:
  • Lighting:
  • Processing:
  • Technical:

This is a very beautiful scene which you have captured well. Fog has a way of adding a type of calming emotion as well as simplifying an image. Your image shows a lot of depth by having rocks in the foreground followed by fog, followed by hills/mountains, followed by more fog and then more hills/mountains.
You mentioned that you took the image with a cell phone. This shows by the lack of detail in the image. You may be able to do better by capturing a raw image, but it probably depends on how old your phone is. However, I don’t think this detracts from the image much at all. I struggled at first with your composition as it seemed to be out of balance. However, all my attempts to improve it in Lightroom failed to improve what you have. In addition the image seemed a little flat to me so I added contrast by boosting the whites and increasing the blacks. I also added a little vibrance and added texture to the rocks in the foreground. Finally I added a small amount of a vignette to more focus the viewer’s attention. Obviously these changes might give your image a different ‘feel’ than the real scene, but I think they give the image a little more ‘pop’.

Loretta, the three ridges and the hint of pink in the sky show of the fog in the rest of the view well. I agree that some extra contrast helps. It is harder to modify photos that are not taken in RAW mode, plus at least some phones have built in processing that gets added to the photos.