Critique Style Requested: Initial Reaction
Please share your immediate response to the image before reading the photographer’s intent (obscured text below) or other comments. The photographer seeks a genuinely unbiased first impression.
Questions to guide your feedback
What I am trying for with this image is mood. Mood begets feeling and that is what I hope for – that this photograph elicits feelings of one sort or another.
Other Information
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Image Description
Late last September I went for a short five-day canoe trip with a friend in Algonquin Park (about three hours north of Toronto). The weather was exceptional for that time of year – sunny and clear, low 20’s C. (low 70’s F.) during the day, dropping down to 5 or 6 C. (low 40’s F.) with clear skies at night. If you are a lover of morning fog as I am, these are the perfect conditions. That being said, I wasn’t prepared for just how thick the fog was. Each morning I’d emerge from my tent to find I literally couldn’t see ten feet beyond my nose. Indeed, as in this picture, I usually had to wait close to two hours from the time I rolled out of my sleeping bag just before sunrise until enough fog was burned off so that I could see anything to take a picture of. Just sitting in that white stillness was worth getting up for and then, on top of that was the sense of surprise I felt as the fog lifted, and the world slowly revealed itself.
The two primary things I needed to attend to in this picture in post were exposure and colour. I wanted to retain overall, an almost claustrophobic feel while at the same time a sense of pending light and liberation. I also knew I needed to create a hint of detail and interest in the lower part of the frame so that it was more than just a flat white border. In terms of working with colour, I wanted to set a bluish backdrop of fog against its compliment – golden orange – in the forest highlights. Orange and blue are very pleasing together and I hope, helps to create a mood of awe and, also perhaps, quiet optimism.
Technical Details
