Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
Conceptual: Feedback on the message and story conveyed by the image.
Emotional: Feedback on the emotional impact and artistic value of the image.
Technical: Feedback on the technical aspects of the image, such as exposure, color, focus and reproduction of colors and details, post-processing, and print quality.
Specific Feedback and Self-Critique
Two weeks into our canoe trip we hit a burn. We’d been expecting it though it wasn’t part of the devastating fires from the previous year. This area that we were entering was from a burn five years earlier that had, nonetheless, cut a considerable swath. These boreal fires burn like a blow torch, burning so hot and moving so fast that the trees, charred and black, remain standing. Even though we knew we were going to run into this along our journey, there really was no way to prepare emotionally for the extremity of it especially when it is all you see during four days of paddling. After a surprisingly short time, it begins to feel like a never-ending journey through Mordor. Although boreal forest revives itself through these kinds of burns, what is happening in our lifetime is different. Global climate change has turned these forests into tinder boxes and what are supposed to be generational fires are happening almost every year.
The devastation is heart breaking and yet as in all aspects of the natural world there is a beauty to it, grim and barren though it may be. Even before the trip began I had hoped to find images that would help tell this story. But I wasn’t quite prepared for the extent of this. We had paddled through burn in the past but never this extensive and for so long. When the sun is out, there is no shade, when skies are overcast and gray, as it was for most of this journey, it feels like there is no hope. The mood insinuates itself until we began to feel as vulnerable as our surroundings. Still, I kept open, looking for the photograph that I held as a vision, and which grew with every day that we paddled along the river. On the third day, we made camp on an exposed rock face that must have been a beautiful site in times past. Across the river was a rock bluff where I saw this. It was as though the charred forest remains and the rock they stood on had assembled for a portrait. Grim and beautiful, even the overcast sky contributed, appearing more like smoke than clouds.
This picture means a lot to me. It is as it was composed in the camera. The trees are perfectly aligned, (mostly) upright and bare. The rock has an almost grimy feel and the clouds, well as I said, more like smoke.
I don’t know that this photograph is particularly original in concept. But it feels perfectly aligned with my vision and I feel very privileged to have been gifted the opportunity to make this picture.
I love this image. These mangled trees and tree top have a great emotional power. Part of why I like it is because it’s not beautiful I guess. I actually prefer not knowing the narrative of global warming and fire and just let the picture speak for itself for what it is. Yes, it’s the shapes of the trees and the way they overlap and lean on one another that speaks of the tragedy.
A couple of things. 1) The down tree on the left bothers me. Maybe it’s just me or maybe I’ve got fixated on it but everything is up and down or diagonal and that one is horizontal and crossing out of the frame. 2) I wonder if the theme wouldn’t be enhanced if the highlights in the sky were brought down a bit. That should create greater texture as well. I’m actually not sure about this suggestion because a ‘barer’ sky actually does support the theme quiet well. I guess my suggestion would add drama. But is drama good for this scene?
I also like that there is chaos in this scene. That the trees are not regularly separated but ‘matted down’ into clumps of darkness and confusion. I think that all works well with the theme.
All in all, this is an emotional and thought provoking image with considerable complexity (and very little color).
Kerry, I think this is stunning, which is to say the Visual Impact is fantastic! The trees really stand out and look great as they are both orderly in a row, yet individually all beautifully mangled.
I can only imagine how sad you must have felt, at least initially, travelling through this charred scenery.
Thanks for sharing once again a bit of your trip.
What is beauty? Igor said this isn’t beautiful, but I think it is. Beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder. I’m amazed that the trees are still standing. Around here, the tops of the burnt trees (pines) started to break off after about 3 years. It’s probably the type of tree. It’s also amazing that there isn’t more regrowth of low shrubs - is that a factor of the harsh winter climate?
That horizontal log going out frame left is the only jarring note, but I wouldn’t clone it out. The scene is jarring by its nature.
A tremendous story to go with such an emotional and provocative image, Kerry. I can’t imagine what I’d feel after four days of paddling through such a haunting and barren landscape. I can taste the soot in my mouth from the ashes made rom this fire. Everything is so grimy and gritty, almost harsh, fractally but not in light. There is nothing soft and soothing here and that is what speaks to me the most about this image. The spindly, skeletal, ghastly look of the trees speaks of a harsh life with little hope.
This is a well made image and I think it is probably exactly the type of image you were hoping to make on this trip. Thanks for sharing.
I find it to be beautiful. It’s stark and simple, graphic…and it works. I think we’re lucky as photographers to have a perspective that most do not, and it allows us to find beauty in uncommon ways. Classic example here.
Beautiful image. I find the starkness (Bret stole my word!) of the distressed trees against the bright clouds to be a wonderful combination - very striking, yet beautiful. Great contrast (visually) What is interesting to me is that I do see these trees (perfectly framed as you noted…) as having a distressed, wilted almost diseased look to them, begging a story - but fire isn’t the first thing that comes to my mind. Not sure I can explain it - maybe because I’m expecting much less to have remained on these trees after a firestorm.
And thank you for the back story. I can only imagine the emotions you experienced on this journey.
Other than a conversion to b&w, I can’t think of anything I would change with this image.
This is a very striking image with a somber mood and yet I find it so beautiful. I love how there appears to be just the single layer of trees silhouetted against that wonderfully moody sky. The green of the new growth at the bottom of the image really add some freshness and hope to the scene as well. Overall I think you did a fantastic job with this!
