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
When looking at this image, what is your primary emotional response? ie: positive (relaxation, peace, quietude, spaciousness), negative (sadness, boredom, restlessness, depression). Do you want to keep gazing at it? Or do you want to move on?
Other Information
Please leave your feedback before viewing the blurred information below, once you have replied, click to reveal the text and see if your assessment aligns with the photographer. Remember, this if for their benefit to learn what your unbiased reaction is.
Image Description
This is a grouping of trees I had been noticing for quite some time. They are in my local ski area, somewhat up the hill from the base. It’s hard to make an image like this happen while in the company of non-photographers - expecially a bunch of powder skiers! So I went up by myself on a non-powder day (I’m also an avid powder skier ;<), and managed to get the grouping/arrangement I wanted from the chairlift.
Technical Details
ISO 100
240 mm
_ Original Photo
f/ 10
1/250 sec
Sony A7RIII
Specific Feedback
I am focused here on providing a sense of calmness, healing. So I guesss I am interested in the emotional effect.
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
Beautiful mood and great black and white subject. Love the bare trunks along with the evergreens. I like the little tree in upper left but need more snow around it. It is important in the composition, but if it can’t float in a bit more space it might have to be trimmed off, leaving a still beautiful winter image.
I really like the black and white treatment here, and also the kind of glamour glow effect of the whole thing. For me, the little tree in the upper left feels out of place and detracts from the scene. I would be inclined to crop in from that side to remove that tree and the tish of brush along the left edge a bit lower. For me, the foreground trees and the bare trees behind make a lovely snow scene on their own.
Edit: After reading what you were going for: It definitely gives me a serene feeling. Even though it’s a cold scene, it feels calm, comforting, quiet, contemplative.
Here is the crop I would be inclined to work with (portrait aspect or square by cropping up from bottom as well):
Connie, this is a lovely, peaceful and quiet scene. I like @Marylynne_Diggs first crop idea, but I get more of a 3D effect with your original crop for some reason. The trees in front really stand out. The little bits of extra brush on the left side do distract just a bit.
I guess I’m not good on emotional responses until I resolve technical issues. This is a wonderful scene and image quality looks good at the size size we cans see here. But the lone tree in the UL corner needs more breathing room. If you cloned out the traces of stuff on he left you could add canvas left and top. Otherwise I’d clean up the left edge and chop down that lone tree. A lighter vignette on the trees on the left edge could give a nice framing effect.
Connie, there’s a quiet serenity (after a big snow storm) feeling here. The heavily laden branches of the front trees tell that story well. The smaller tree in the upper left is important as a visual foil for the main trees, but as other’s have pointed out, it’s too close to the frame’s edge. That’s easy to say when you weren’t there dealing with what’s just out of the frame…
I’ve always kinda liked the little tree up in the corner. It’s seemed a little flirty, with its skirts flaring, unlike the other evergreens that look so stolid and still. It’s almost like it photo bombed the image! But then … I re-worked it and added the space y’all suggested, and…I like it!
Here’s the re-work. Thank you everyone for your time to comment and your ideas.
