Seeing a recent post of an Icelandic river stirred memories of a 2021 photo shoot in Iceland. We were strapped into a helicopter with the door open and our feet hanging out. After getting over the initial unsettling feeling and cold feet, the view was beyond description.
Type of Critique Requested
- 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.
Specific Feedback and Self-Critique
You could not help but be inspired by the river landscapes below. Are the colors too saturated? Does the orientation work? Do you get a sense of flow?
Technical Details
Nikon D850, Nikon 24-120mm lens, 5 5.6, 1/2500 sec, ISO 3200. Processin in PS and Nik Color Effes Pro
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Paul,
What a fantastic natural abstract. A sense of flow? Absolutely. Color? Blues saturated, but this is an abstract and I have no expectation of rendering the scene in any other way than how you want to portray it. I think the warm/cool balance works beautifully.
Orientation. My immediate thought was this should be a horizontal image. In fact the first thing I thought was wanting to twist my head to make it horizontal… I think the vertical works, but something mentally just says that it must be naturally horizontal. I don’t know how this was captured, and doesn’t matter to me - other than I much prefer this rotated 90deg ccw. But that’s just me.
I’m also quite curious about the circular shape near the left edge. I kinda like it as it is quite different than any of the other shapes and flow. Also wish it wasn’t so close to the edge. Not sure what to think or do about that. As presented this is just darn cool.
Curious to learn other’s thoughts on the vertical orientation.
Lon
Thank you for your thoughts. I printed the image as a vertical as the river was running say north-south rather than east-west, so I stayed with that orientation. However, given it’s abstract nature any direction works. The little circular shape I believe is a pool of water trapped in the silt.
What a crazy cool abstract image! I too, like @Lon_Overacker, found myself turning my head sideways to the right to view it as a landscape. It has great energy about it with the delta flow pattern and the bright, contrasting warm and cool colors. Great capture, must’ve been a truly exhilarating experience!
Hi Paul, I bet seeing this in person from a helicopter was an unforgettable experience! Like Steve and Lon, I too was tilting my head to see the image in a horizontal perspective. Either way works but that was my initial reaction. Yes the image has a nice flow to it. The blue does appear a bit oversaturated to me but as Lon mentioned, this is meant to be an abstract image and the gold/blue colors work quite well.
Thanks for your critique. When I first saw the scene, the colors and pattern reminded me of a Jerry Garcia tie.
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I agree on rotating. I think it would look almost electric. You could play around with contrast or filters to amp up the feeling of electricity. I did that on photo and it’s one of my top 5 favs ever. Use with care though. It’s easy to overdo, unless of course that’s what you’re going for. Given that we are Nature photographers, my guess is you’re hoping to retain some feeling of nature.
I love the texture too. I just want to zoom in and look at all the details. Great image!
Hi Paul, great image, and what a backstory about how it was captured! Sounds very cool (literally and figuratively!).
I’m usually a portrait orientation person for abstracts, but I am agreeing with others that this takes on a different energy when seen in landscape. I’d play around with cropping, rotating, and flipping until I found the balance of tension and flow that pleased me. I’d also experiment with different vibrancy/saturation options. I like the bold color as you’ve shared it; it’s part of what makes it pop. And I’m sometimes surprised at how much I like more muted abstracts. It’s the awesome fun of abstracts: so many possibilities 
Fabulous capture!
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