Critique Style Requested: Standard
The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
Whitewater Canyon, near Palm Springs, is a jumble of boulders, sand, cacti and driftwood constantly being rearraged by flash floods. I love to wander there and fill my lens with chaos and patterns in dried mud. Stumbling through the rocks and thickets during January, after a storm, I happened upon this enormous, battered and broken Cottonwood, which had been ripped from its moorings and tumbled in the rushing water. The good news was that I found it; the bad news was that it was very tough to photograph in a way that captured the drama of what had happened. It was fun just being next to it and wishing I had witnessed its demise. I opted for panorama, but also shot a lot of closeups in wide angle. And a few from a distance, trying to provide perspective in the desert canyon location. But in those, the tree was lost in the background, which didn’t clearly show its size.
Specific Feedback
Thoughts on how to shoot something like this would be appreciated. Also comments on the composition. To me, the shot has to tell the story of a natural event, a flood almost too violent to imagine in this desert location.
Technical Details
Handheld series of shots stitched into a pano – my files don’t show the settings, but I was shooting at F11 or 16 to get depth of field. Sky was overcast but bright, so no tripod.