This autumn I visited Chesterfield Gorge in New Hampshire to shoot some waterfalls. Although I came away with some decent waterfall images, I became fascinated with the fallen beech leaves on the rock wall of the gorge. I used a 70-200mm lens to extract this composition from the overall scene.
What artistic feedback would you like if any?
Want to know if people think the pattern of leaves and rock textures are strong enough to carry the image. To me there may be no real place for the eye to rest in this pattern, and does that bother you?
Any other critique and comment would be appreciated.
In reference to your comment about where to rest the eye…At first I had difficulty determining which way is up. Is this one of those occasions where less is more or a slightly wider view to find a point of reference. Perhaps a different crop?
You obviously saw something in the scene… I like the concept, colors and the picture in general. I really like the golden/bronse color cast and the scattering of the leaves.
Grabbing a quote from another I give you a well done for seeing something that others may pass by.
“No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.” – Ansel Adams
I had some difficulty with this until I realized it was due to NPN presentation. Once I added a frame I started to appreciate this image more. I don’t see any problem with this composition and I don’t find it busy. You’ve got some strong diagonals with bright leaves sprinkled throughout. Yes, without those rock diagonals it might look busy. At first I wasn’t sure about the urc corner but I think it adds a lot.
I am enjoying this a lot. Great colors and patterns and textures. I would consider a crop off the top to eliminate the moss. I find my attention drifts up toward the green and the dark edge up there. Otherwise, I don’t find my attention drifting aimlessly at all. Well seen and done.
Thank you everyone for your comments, they are appreciated. @Greg_Giesing, I wanted to make this an abstract, and there wasn’t much space to either the left or right for a wider view without introducing either trees or the waterfall itself, so I chose this narrow telephoto view to keep it as an abstract.
@Harley_Goldman, I think you may be right about the moss, it is out of place relative to the rest of the image. @Igor_Doncov thank you for your insight on the use of a frame to change the appearance of an image, I am surprised how much of a difference it makes here. You have given me some food for thought about how I present my images at NPN, I’m going to have to experiment with this.
First off; great eye for spotting this mundane scene and turning it into quite beautiful, Ed. The delicate beauty of the fallen beech leaves contrasts rather nicely with the rock wall IMO. I think the lines in the rock along with the leaves do carry the image; in fact they let me wander around the entire scene as I enjoy the details and textures. My only suggestion would be the already mentioned crop of the moss, but that is minor stuff.
I like the textures and colors of the image but my first impression was that there was no where for my eye to stop. There was no real center of interest. I guess I don’t have any suggestions to improve it unless you tried singling out small areas of the image for some close up images.
Ed, I’m a little late on this one but I do like this composition. I agree with cropping the upper moss but the shadows, colors and textures all work well for me. Nice work !
Interesting subject but for me there is not enough to carry the image. I do like the character of the rock formation and the inclusion of the leaves but wish for something to stand out as the main subject. By the way, Chesterfield Gorge is located in Western Massachusetts, unless there is another in New Hampshire. I go there often and find it beautiful, but hard to get a good angle in the gorge area.
Kudos to you for recognizing this and spending some time crafting an image. Some times, images are not about a subject like “leaves” or “rock” (or grasses ftm…) but the image is broader than that. It’s simply a bigger image of nature and the impression is one of the sum of it’s parts. This is one of those images and I think Igor could describe this better…
To me it’s not so much an abstract, simply an intimate nature portrait.
Agree with Harley/others about cropping from the top; at a minimum removing the moss and the dark area UR; the moss isn’t consistent with the rest of the details and there is plenty of repeating elements that cropping doesn’t really take away from the message. In fact, I might even experiment cropping as far as near square, starting from the bottom.
I really like and appreciate what you saw. I think it’s just a matter of fine tuning a crop that you may be happy with.
I like this quite a bit. I know others have said they might crop out the moss but I think that would be a mistake as it would get reduce the impact of that strong upper left to lower right diagonal of that top rock (which is repeated elsewhere in the image). Instead - as I agree it is a little distracting - I think desaturating the greens of the moss a bit would maintain the composition and eliminate the distraction.
Thank you for your comments Ron. I agree with you about maintaining the comp, but de-saturating the moss is a good idea. This was a grab shot after arriving at the waterfall only to find a fallen tree blocking it. I wanted to come away with something from that hike and this was it, I know it is nothing spectacular.
