I usually try not to post images out of season, but I unfortunately haven’t been able to head out to western MD yet for any winter images. I still have a few November images from Shenandoah and Cape Henlopen SP that I haven’t posted, so here we go. I think my brother Mike posted one similar to this image. This scene was captured from the tunnel parking overlook as the fog and clouds were clearing out toward sunset. What originally caught my eye was the diagonal flow of the trees growing on the mountainside with the light fog swirling in and out of the bits of fall color.
Specific Feedback Requested
All C&C welcome. I am curious how the fog looks to everyone. I have played around with the color for a while now and I can’t really tell anymore.
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
Nikon D800, Nikon 80-200 @ 125 mm, f 8 @ 0.3 sec, ISO 400, CPL, cable release & tripod
Even though its a diagonal horizon, this is one of those 50/50 horizons that successfully breaks the rules for me. I think its because half is sharp and saturated colors, and half is soft and muted colors.
I think te arrangement of trees is well balanced. The mix of yellow and green is very appealing too, foliage must turn late in Shenandoah if it is this green in November.
My only suggestion would be to de-saturate the yellow tree at the center bottom edge. The strong color attracts a lot of attention, and de-saturating it might help focus more attention on the center of the image.
Wonderfully moody image Ed. You’ve captured some incredible atmosphere with all of the swirling fog Ed. Makes this so dreamy. With atmosphere like this you could certainly get away with less sharpening particularly the background foggy areas where you could create even more mood by removing the sharpening and maybe even adding some negative dehaze or negative clarity. I hope you don’t mind but I brought this quickly into LR and played around with it. I selectively removed about 50% of the sharpening in the foggy triangle, added -35 points of clarity and another -30 points of dehaze, and lowered the highlights about 20 points all in the foggy triangle area. Then I took Ed’s advise and reduced the saturation and luminosity of the bright foreground tree center bottom and I changed the hue slightly towards green so it doesn’t stick out so much and catch the eye. Of course, these are all subjective so take this with a grain of salt. I may have gone too far with this. In any case you have another wonderful image from this location and posting out of season images doesn’t bother me at all. It’s actually quite nice to have a change of pace of scenery. Good luck getting out in winter conditions and getting some shots. Hope to see some posted.
Nice one, Ed. I really like the mood created by the fog and the processing looks good. I like @Ed_McGuirk 's suggestion about the tree but otherwise, I like it as presented.
I like the contrast in mood between the foggy area and the closer trees. The trees that foster the transition between the two worlds work well. I actually like the strong colors in the nearer trees even though they have been exaggerated. Nice work.
Thanks @Michael_Lowe. I was surprised at how close our images were to each other since I did not notice you shooting in that direction after I moved off.