The photographer has shared comprehensive information about their intent and creative vision for this image. Please examine the details and offer feedback on how they can most effectively realize their vision.
Self Critique
It is a dramatic image. Not sure about the background or the cropping. Maybe too intense color.
Creative direction
An image from Bryce that is a little different from what everyone else has done.
Specific Feedback
How impactful is this? How could it have more impact or is is just another hoodoo photograph?
Technical Details
Sony a1, Tamron 28-75 lens at f9, 1/250, iso 320
Description
Taken from the rim trail at 11:00 am in May. I was taken by the prominance of the hoodoo with the vast background behind it.
Critique Template
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Very pretty vantage point and nice colours
I think your light was getting into the mid-day hours, as the image seems quite flat.
Maybe a little darkening and vibrance would help
The dirt foreground doesn’t add a lot, so perhaps a crop with less bottom and more clouds on top would work
I think the composition is good. You have a strong diagonal with great repeating verticals behind and faint diagonals even further. The cluster of white branches in the lower left is also good.
Yeah, the colors are letting you down. The image looks over processed. The colors seemed to have been pushed to make an impact and look garish. The sky looks unnatural as well. It looks like you darkened it to make the clouds more evident. Don’t know what you started with so it’s hard to advise.
You could experiment with b&w because the composition is really quite good.
I agree with most everything @Igor_Doncov has shared. But I would also look at your statement around creative direction - “a little different from what everyone else has done”. How so? And what exactly does that mean? Difference for its own sake or is there some mood or sensibility that you want to convey? It is certainly more than just a snap shot but I would suggest that if you are shooting at 11 am in the high desert in May, you might think about converting to B&W. To me the image feels flooded with light such that it lacks, for me at least, any sense of mystery, magic, and awe that is so much a part of this landscape. I lived in the high desert of Arizona for fifteen years in my youth and what I always felt about the hight desert was a sense of ancient magic. This image doesn’t convey that to me. But then, that may not have been your intention. I think you should take another run at post processing this image and start by really reflecting on the mood you want to convey and then start thinking about how you can use the elements that are there in the raw image - light, colour, line etc. - and how you might work with them so that the mood you felt and, I would assume, you want me to feel, is conveyed. For example, you might try lowering the exposure overall and then maybe spotlighting the hoodoo. Really, the possibilities are endless. But the thing about post processing is, if you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you’re there. Again, as David duChemin would say, “It’s not about what you saw, it’s about what you felt”.
I hope you find this critique helpful.
Joey,
I like where you were going with this and the view is certainly wonderful. I could also see this as a B&W because the light is a bit harsh. For my tastes the colors are a bit to saturated and the OOF bush along the bottom is a bit distracting. Just my opinion of course. If this were mine I would play around with it a bit and see what I could come up with.
