The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
Went out walking again yesterday and ended up on some frozen bogs, my new favorite thing. This section of the Ice Age Trail is quite hilly and the area in general has a ton of small bogs and ponds so I knew I’d have plenty to explore. We have in the neighborhood of 3 feet of snow on the ground and snowshoes are a must. Even so, I broke through to my knees a few times in search of a beaver lodge that I didn’t find despite seeing beaver sign very near. Maybe next time.
I also didn’t get the light conditions forecasted and it was blue bird skies all day. Things I might have shot if it had been less harsh and contrasty, I ignored and tried instead to work with the hard shadows and I think this is my most successful image. Not sure what the plant is, but I really liked the isolation and how the shadows seem to playfully tease the plant itself. A little maneuvering on my part got them lined up the way I wanted.
Specific Feedback
It was nearly painfully bright without sunglasses, but the snow is powder and I tried to show that and bring a little drama to an otherwise overlooked scene. Does it look right to you - snow can be so weird to deal with.
Lr for a big wb correction and global adjustments to get the snow looking reasonable. A little crop and not much else. Texture really brought up the sparkle and color panel to reduce the blue saturation.
Kris: Another great find and I appreciate your description of the conditions and your thought processes in setting up the shot. Great job on the snow both for texture and for color. Most excellent. >=))>
Wonderful capture under obviously difficult conditions! Excellent choice of where to put the reflections. I love images like this, but all my attempts have failed, I think because my subjects have been too complex. Your choice here of two stems is ideal. Can you share a little on how you got the snow so white? I often struggle with WB in snow. Is it just a matter of subtly increasing the temperature? I have a minor suggestion of removing the few tiny crystals that are blown out, although, I do wonder if you left those in intentionally to better capture the scene.
Thanks @Bill_Fach ~ @Willemd & @Dennis_Plank - glad it isn’t too boring in its simplicity. Conditions were fun and I laughed every time I sank in deep, so even though the light was kind of crap, it was worth being out. We’re getting snow now, although not as much as what hit the Northeast yesterday.
White snow is my bugbear because most of the time, it isn’t really white, but reflects the sky and that can be tough in shadows especially as they appear so blue. I do a couple of things, first change the in-camera wb to something resembling what I see without sunglasses. Then I over expose by AT LEAST a stop, frequently a bit more. In post I usually use the eyedropper to adjust wb as a starting point (auto works ok sometimes), then massage until I think the subject looks right. I will also go to the color panel (and sometimes calibration) to adjust the blue channel which can really get overwhelmed in bright sunshine with shadows. Oh and I also work with a white frame around the photo in Lr so I can monitor the level of whiteness against pure white. Using global highlight and white sliders works well, too, but can remove a lot of texture if pushed too far.
Oh and rumex looks to be in the ballpark. I’ll have to try to remember to go looking for these in the kayak when I’m out. Not sure if they are only a bog species, but I paddle a bog regularly and they might show up.
Excellent, Kris. I don’t think you could have got a better composition. The snow really does look like snow. I wonder if, on one occasion, you were to do a stack of the scene, how much more of the snow would be in focus? And then I wonder how this would affect our perception of the whole scene. But I love this the way it is.
Thanks @Mike_Friel - I don’t often go out with a tripod in winter as I usually am on snowshoes and have enough to manage with those alone, but I have brought it in the past and admit it can be useful for exactly what you suggest. Not sure I could line up the frames well enough to do it freehand.
Hi Kris: I have a friend who’s run across a cult of Utubers that are into freehand focus stacking. Apparently they’ve developed a technique to do it by fixing the focus and slowly moving the camera in boost mode. Here you’re talking almost landscape level stacking and I’ll bet if you took a monopod and stuck it in the snow you’d be plenty stable.
