This photo was taken at 5:30 pm mid October, in the shade. f/16, 0.5 sec, 170mm, The color palate in the original was actually just like this. The edit involved cleaning up a lot of stray branches and adding a small amount of contrast and saturation. As usual, all comments and suggestions welcome. Especially, does it need more “pop”, ie contrast and saturation?
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Lovely shot, Tony. I love the upper part but the bottom looks a bit blank in comparison. I might consider cropping some off the bottom to kinda balance it out some.
Tony, this is quite nice. I love the brighter yellow leaves sprinkled around the top. I don’t think you need any more contrast or saturation in this, it’s very nice in its subtlety.
I agree with Bill about cropping off the bottom, and I tried a 4x5 ratio and it worked nicely to my eye. I also reduced the cyan and blue saturation to whiten the trees. I know with them being in shade, they would appear blue. I’m torn between your original and this, because I like the blue/yellow contrast in the original, so I just present this as an option.
Tony,
My first thought was this reminded me of a Charlotte Gibb scene from the Sierra. I do like both @Bill_Chambers and @Craig_Moreau crop suggestion, but prefer your original handling of the shadows and colors. Beautiful work!
Tony,
I like the detail in this image and how the few yellow leaves pop against the shadowed background. I also like the weight difference between the bottom half (mostly foliage) and the top half (mostly branches).
If this were my image, I would experiment with more contrast, as that is often what makes an image dramatic, and I tend to like dark or bright images. Regarding composition, I find my eyes darting back and forth between the sets of trunks on the left and right edges rather than settling on something, and that makes me uneasy. I wonder if the brightness of the tree(s) between them could be brightened sufficiently and the bare trunks darkened sufficiently to make the central tree(s) the subject. Or maybe a square crop from the top would give the trunks and branching more prominence as the subject.
This might make a very interesting and moody B&W.
What do you think?
Tony, it is so wonderful! Gustav Klimt would have appreciated it too ;->
Tony, this is really nice. It has a very painterly feeling to it. The soft light is great here. I actually like have the cooler color cast in aspen trunks, it creates a a nice contrast against the the yellow leaves. I agree with @Craig_Moreau about the crop to more of a 4:5 though, it nicely tightens up the composition.
I’m not sure the image needs more pop via contrast and saturation, it might risk losing some of the soft painterly mood here. But I do think you could dodge the yellow leaves in the bottom half of the image to accentuate them more. Here is a a rework where I used a TK Actions Yellow color mask to select the leaves and dodge them. I think it adds more vitality to the bottom half of the image. I also cropped to about 4:5.
Good understated autumn scene, Tony. Put me down for it as originally posted. I like that composition much better. You could add some more contrast and color pop, or leave it as is. Both would work for me, just artistic preference and a little different mood at that point.
Thanks for the comments one and all. All the suggestions are good ones. I will let them sit for awhile and then try them out.
Hi Tony, I was leafing through my Ansel Adams portfolio book while recovering from the tender mercies of a skilled surgeon (minor), and I saw your image mirrored in “Dawn, Autumn forest, Great Smokey Mountains National Park”. One critique area for your image was bottom cropping; By letting the tree stems fall down into the image, both you and Adams let the trees float above the lower part of the image. I find that a pleasing effect.
Saturating/ dodging the leavesis a matter of what mood you wish. With your original, some are light and some are not. To me, that conveys a mood of deepening autumn. Punching them up would be more conventional, but a different mood. A bit of a reach perhaps, but you can also blur the yellows for a different effect.
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Me and Ansel go way back. Actually, as a medical intern in San Francisco in 1971 I helped take care of him. And my wife was living in Carmel in grade school and had tea at their house.
The even light provides a nice abstract feel to this, although I really like the glow on some of the leaves. The bottom of the frame is definitely less interesting compared to the top, and am wondering if a square crop to exclude the bottom might be worth exploring.
Thanks again for the comments! I really appreciate the advice. This is a redo, starting from the RAW file. I didn’t “prune” as many branches because in the pruning process it creating a weird looking background. So, the background details and colors more truly represent the original. The original had a gradient of light to dark from top to bottom which I edited out, but I have kept it here and in fact increased it a bit. I also tried a small crop and increased the saturation and contrast a bit. I was especially interested in making the photo seem more three dimension by increasing the pop of the yellow trees in the foreground. Again, any and all suggestions appreciated. Is the light gradient from top to bottom too much? Is there too much “pop”? Does the crop work, does it need more crop? And finally, would it benefit from a slight Orton effect?
Wonderful intimate landscape. Charlotte Gibb comes to mind here for me too., a real compliment. The contrast between the bare trees and other aspens with the sparkling surround of gold leaves is super. To crop or not to crop from the bottom – if that is the question, the answer must be in how you vision the image. Is it for the tallness of the trees or the impact of the upper two thirds of the image. It works well for me either way.
Read through all the comments and love this rework. I actually quite enjoyed the original but this edit is even better. The crop is good and has more pop but not too much. The colors are perfect! Maybe could use a slight targeted Orton effect in the main trees but doesn’t hurt it not to.