Taken at sunrise at a pond in Massachusetts. Was really hoping for some more autumn colors at this location, they were subdued but ended up getting some really cool clouds and nice sunrise.
A few things I love about this image:
The Sun Star, the way the sun light is hitting the middle area, the cloud formation that looks like an angel’s wings and the reflection.
What I am struggling with:
The image does not pop too me, composition does not seem especially strong.
Would you crop this differently overall ; or crop differently just for certain applications (1:1 for IG for example) or leave as is? I wanted to preserve a standard 2:3 ratio for printing purposes and centered for the cloud in the background.
Any advice and comments appreciated, tough skin here and will only learn from critique.
The color and contrast work nicely for me. I really like the reflection. You might experiment with crops for left and right sides to draw more attention to the trees and the reflection. Nicely done.
-P
This looks beautiful as presented to me. I’m not sure I would crop because I like the “form” the grouping of trees creates; and with the angel’s wings in the sky, I wouldn’t want any smaller of a frame.
Exposure, processing all look good to me. If anything, I see a hint of magenta in the clouds - but then again, it is early morning sunrise time and there could still be color in the sky, so that’s minor.
The large view opens up nicely and I think you have just enough brightness/luminosity in highlight trees showing off the hints of fall.
Matt, this pond is one of my favorite locations to shoot in New England, I know it well. To me the strongest elements in this image are all in the top half of the image, ie the clouds, the tree silhouettes, the backlit foliage, and the sunstar. The reflection of the trees is not nearly as interesting to me, and I’m not sure partly cutting them off like this helps. I would consider a crop away from the bottom and go more panoramic with this, it would place more emphasis on the nice backlit foliage. If the water in the pond had some backlit fog on it I think the wider view would hold more interest. But with the conditions you had that morning, I would recommend the pano crop.
This is an enjoyable image to see. My favorite part is the sparseness of the branches, that you can see through the trees. Somehow those branches go well with the streaky clouds.
Thank you Preston, yes I think I will crop in a little bit. Losing a little bottom and left and right sides.
I was hesitant to do that at first but already do have an earlier morning wider angle take on the scene.
Thanks Lon!
You are right about the Magenta being a little too strong in the sky. Globally reducing magneta did not work for me so will have to go with a more targeted approach to just get some out of the sky.
Appreciate the reply Ed.
Using your critique as well as the comments from others I made some edits.
Attached is my final* edit (I hope final) of this image.
I removed some of the magenta from the clouds as Lon pointed out, and recomposed the image overall as per Ed’s recommendation keeping to my choice of maintaining a 2:3 ratio.
I also am attaching 2 other images from that morning.
Let me know what you think if you have a chance
If you have a favorite of the 3 that would be nice to know which even if no other critique or comments.
Thanks so much Igor!
Yeah I did not think of it that way but looking at it, I see what you mean had the trees in front been more full one would not be able to the see past the initial row of darker trees into the best parts of the image.
