This begins year two for me with NPN. I’ve improved thanks to all of your help and I hope to continue to sustain some growth!
I know fall reflections can be a bit cliche, but I’d never done one so it was new to me! What I liked about this scene was it felt like it was the definition of fall. Like if I could sum it up in an image, this is pretty close to it (in an impressionistic sense). I love when fall images feature the structures of the tree as the main character and the color in more of a supporting role, not sure that this image achieves that as it puts the colors front and center but I think the trunks provide some structure that the color falls in around.
What they said! This is very beautiful, with gorgeous colors in a pleasing pattern and a very nice bit of structure in the trunks and subtle waves. Shoot more of this sort of stuff!!
I agree, this is really beautiful. I like these kind of blurry, dreamy images. I’d like to do more of these myself!
Hey, since you haven’t done this before, you could change the category and tag and enter it in the “Testing” weekly challenge!
In Lightroom I worked the tone curve to add contrast, and used exposure to balance that adjustment. Those were the only two adjustments in raw. Working in PS the goal was to first clean up some floaters in the water, second separate the trunks (darkening) from the color (brightness and contrast = saturation). Finally I added an orton effect to enhance the dreamy nature of it.
I do think the trunks play a very important role in adding structure , otherwise all you have is a mosaic of colors. I also like it that you kept the WB from getting too warm, having the trunk reflections be somewhat cool adds some nice color contrast to the image. This is a very painterly image, that takes this beyond being just a cliche reflection picture .
I have a very subjective suggestion. My preference would be try to balance the luminosity of the various colors a bit more, so that they were more similar. I would slightly reduce the luminosity of the green in the ULC. And I would increase the luminosity of the oranges and reds in the right half. I would try to make both of these more similar in luminosity to the yellow and orange in the center. Right now the green is the brightest color, and has a lot of visual weight. I think balancing the luminosity would make the red and orange more equal players (this is an autumn image after all).
I love reflections, and I think you have got it just right in the rework. The tree trunks add a lot to the quality of the image. …and I also just started my second year!
