Just some autumn color along Duck Brook Road in Acadia NP. This is one of the places I find myself spending more time exploring and photographing during the fall.
Does the empty ULC bother you? Any other feedback you might think of.
Nikon D800, Nikon 80-200 @ 95 mm, F 20 @ 1/20 sec, ISO 1000 for wind, CPL, cable release & tripod
Beautiful color!! Before I even read your question, I was feeling the comp was a little off. It is the ULC. I would crop off the left about half way across the green leaves. I would also clone the brown leaf, but that is pretty dang minor. This is really nice!
This is gorgeous, Ed. Real eye candy. Playing around with it on my monitor I agree with Harley, that I would crop off about 50% of the green leaves. I find the image is a bit right-side heavy due to the rich color and the crop provides for a better balance.
Very nice arrangement of colors and this works well for me with or without a crop.
Ed, Simply gorgeous color - although maybe the red/oranges up top are a bit saturated. (Could be my tired eyes tonight…)
I’m less bothered by the ULC, more interested in the maple leaves. You’ve given most of the space to the reds at the bottom and the trunks with lesser amount to the red/orange maple leaves. Was there a compositional constraint that prevented you from including more? Rather than cropping anything, I’m kinda wishing for more to be included - especially more of the maple leaves up top. They seem a little cut off.
I think if there’s going to be a crop, I’d do both left and right and even a sliver off the bottom which may help bring more emphasis to the maple leaves, which are quite beautiful btw.
Perhaps something like this. A bit tighter, but maybe a bit more balanced.
Lon
There are a lot of strong colors here. I really like Lon’s crop suggestion. You could further crop this on the sides and bottom and center more around the trunk.
The maple leaves dominate the image so much in color and hue that it feels a bit unbalanced to me in terms of color. The bottom hues seem too dark and lack the warmth of the maples. Anyway, to make a long story short I made some adjustments to brighten the undergrowth and shift it to yellow. This was done in RGB. I think doing it in LAB could have worked better.
Thanks for your thoughts @Harley_Goldman, @Dave_Dillemuth, @Rudy_Ruberti, @Lon_Overacker, @Igor_Doncov. I think your crop suggestions have helped balance the image nicely.
@Lon_Overacker: Unfortunately there were some major bare spots in the maple’s foliage if I went any higher in the frame.
There ya go… Yeah, there’s usually a good reason why a photographed is cropped and framed by the photographer already… 
I can’t believe I posted that rework. It’s terrible. Just try to ignore it.
