Deadwood (+revised)

Revised Version

Revision 1 (latest)

What changed: Added exposure to the background trees. Adjusted the white balance for less blues.

Added after receiving feedback from the community.


Original Version

Weekly Challenge

The Gesture of a Branch
10/18/26 - 10/24/26
Critique Style: Standard

The photographer is looking for thoughtful feedback on the image as a whole, especially around the areas noted below.

Feedback Focus: Artistic + Technical

About This Image

The water in the 30,000 Islands archipelago rises and falls 3-4 feet on a ten-year cycle. When it’s low, pines sprout up. When it’s rises, they’re flooded and die, leaving these angular skeltons.

Feedback Requested

I’d welcome thoughts on what would most strengthen this image, either artistically or technically.

Technical Details

Camera: Canon EOS R5
Lens: RF100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM
Focal length: 176mm
Shutter speed: 1/400s
Aperture: f/6.3
ISO: 800

This is a very bold image. I dont know if this is straight out of camera or processed to make the background very dark and blue.

The yellow band of light is gorgeous. It’s a symphony of yellow and blue.

I would be interested to see a version that wasn’t so dark or deeply blue. Forgive me, if you have only minimally processed it to look exactly what you saw in person it’s an amazing image and an amazing sight.

I did play with the image in mono, and lightened it a bit, I’m not sure what you think:

Regards

Huw

Hi Huw - Thanks so much for your feedback. Tbh, when i took the iamge, i underexposed pretty dramatically because I knew I wanted the light on the grass and the dead trees looming in the background. So there wasn’t much processing done to the original beside a few universal adjustments on contrast and a bit on shadows and dropping the blacks to have the green pines in the background completely recede into the background.

i have brought up the background and knocked down the blues as you suggest. Revised image image above.

i appreciate you taking a crack at b+w - probably not for me since it was the colour of the grasses that first attracted me. But thanks for offering an alternative - I do appreciate it.

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The original poster added a revised version of their image.