This image was taken an overcast cold day in April 2021. I was out walking with my dog and camera in a local forest. I liked the fairytale feeling to the scene in front of me. This is one image of several I took during the walk.
Specific Feedback Requested
I really enjoy photographing in the woods but I find it very hard and a bit frustrating. The good thing is that I can easily return and try again when condition are what I want. All feed-back, good or hard, is very welcome and useful to me.
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
Processes in Lightroom. Besides normal raw developing and play with the color grading tool and used the NLM panel to tone down the green colors. I lightened the background to make it feel more misty.
Johan,To me this is just a great as you say "fairytale " image. It has a lot of atmosphere because of the light from the back. To me it looks like a great animal creeping over a hill. So an image with a story in it.
Boulders in forests are a big draw for me, too, but seldom do I find them so isolated. Usually they’re in a big, messy pile. The dramatic lighting is sufficient to draw the eye and so I like the subdued color palette you chose. The sky might benefit from a tiny bit of darkening, but it sort of points the way to the rock so I wouldn’t make it too dark. An excellent portrait of what I think is a glacial erratic.
Greetings, Johan, and welcome to NPN. This does have a fairytale feel, which your processing certainly enhanced. The main rock feels like the ogre in the forest, kept at bay by those two trees. Did you consider darkening the lightest sky area a bit? My eye keeps going up there and out of the frame. That is a small matter, though. This is lovely.
Fascinating image with so many implications. It’s an image full of meaning for me. Are we being protected from it or has it been jailed for us to leer at it? I’m thinking of a gorilla in a zoo. But it could be an ogre as Bonnie suggests. I would use color more strongly or even go with b&w. I feel there is room for experimentation in processing.
Welcome to NPN Johan. This certainly has the feel of a mystical woodland creature in a Fairland setting. As Bonnie noted already, that bright section of light in the middle of the image is an attention grabber so my first thought would be to try and burn down that light a little bit. I also think with a little bit of tinkering around you could possibly get more creative with this.
I look forward to seeing more images from your outings with man’s best friend at your side.
PS I took a few minutes and added some dodging and burning along with a healthy vignette and a few other adjustments. I also toned down that central hot spot and added some light flare from that central light source radiating outward and enveloping the rock. Not sure if I like it better but it is different.
thanks a lot for your feed-back. I agree the rock looks some kind of frozen animal. I have another photo from the same are with a rock looking like a gigant frog. I am very happy you found a story in my image since I found story telling very difficult to do. Thanks!
Thanks you so much for your comment! I will try to darken the sky and see how it looks, I am bit afraid it may turn in grey “mush”, but others have suggested the same so I will try. I was battling myself on whether or not I should clone away the light spots but in the end I did not.
Thanks a lot for you feed-back I really appreciate it! When I saw these rocks with moss on I was a bit inspired by a movie I saw with my daughter (Frozen) in which there are these trolls that could look like rock with moss. So I a very happy you could see that in the image. Others have also suggested to darken the sky so I will try, I am a bit afraid it will turn to grey “mush”. Do you have any favorite way to darken the sky, just reduce exposure and use a brush or are there other ways to do it that is better? Thanks for you comment and suggestions!
Thanks a lot for your feed-back Igor. I am very happy you found a story in the image since I think that creating a story especially in a nature image is hard but important. I will try to re-process the image with stronger colors (in fact I went the other direction and reduced color) which was something David also suggested and illustrated. I did in fact try black and white but I found it more difficult to see the scene but I did not do a very strong try, maybe I will revisit that idea to but I think it will require quite a bit of dodge and burn. Many things to try! Anyway thanks a lot for looking at the image and your suggestions I will sure experiment more with these in mind.
Thanks you David for your comment. I find your version of the image very interesting. I will for sure go back and develop the raw file in a few different ways based on the inspiration provided by you and other comments. Several comments have suggested to darken the light area, do you have a special technique to do that or should I just use a brush with reduced exposure? I have taken many photos in this forest during my dog walks, it is may favorite place to wander around. It is quite a big woodland with many large isolated rocks with moss. Again, big thanks for looking and giving valuable feed-back!
It depends on how much sky there is to darken. For tiny bits, it’s sometimes easier to clone something (tree branches, etc.) over them (if you don’t mind cloning). For larger areas, I find I just have to experiment, because, as you point out, it’s easy to get gray mush. Usually, it’s a combination of lowering exposure and the lights/highlights.
For your photo, I experimented with lowering the lights & highlights (in Camera Raw) and cooling that bright spot, using a radial filter that affected only the light areas. I also cooled it a bit, and also added a linear filter to the background, cooling it overall just a tad, also a linear filter over the foreground, to warm it. Then I put a radial filter over the bare spot on the main rock, warmed it up a bit and increased the highlights & clarity. The idea was to make the upper light area visually recede (by darkening and cooling) and make the bare rock spot pop out more by warming and brightening it. I also wondered what a tighter crop would do, so I went to 5:7; to me it feels more balanced, especially the relationship between the two bright areas. See what you think.
Sorry I’m late to the conversation here, but I had to stop as I was affected by this image. To my interpretation, the primary subject is the rock behind the two trees. This is great and is a relationship you have well presented.
The white exposed rock mirrors the patch of sky, so the two keep referring to one another and as others have implied, distract the viewer from the main relationship and this is my primary critique. To me, this relationship is in conflict with the primary and secondary subjects (rock, behind trees in foggy forest).
How to manage this? No easy answers as you know. One approach I’d be tempted to do is perhaps too ambitious and involves cloning moss into the exposed white rock to cover it up. Then, in order to lose the isolated patch of white sky, I’d consider increasing the brightness of the surrounding fog to merge with it and create a diffuse brighter vague region behind the trees while backing off on the heavy vignette at the upper aspect of the image. How aggressive to be is a matter of taste.
Thanks for posting and keep them coming! Great first image!
Thank for taking time to critique my image! I am very happy to hear the image affected you. I see the problem that you point out and I tried to do some cloning the best I could. Instead of adding moss to the rock I removed the bright spot up in the trees.
Nice clone work Johan! I’m not going to pixel peep on this one because that simply isn’t helpful. I think this alone has significantly increased the power of the image and by removing the mirrored element of brightness in the sky, it has reduced the distraction of the brightness of the rock. I think what you’ve done here is all that was necessary to markedly increase the impact of the image to my eye.
Johan, that is one awesome “gnome rock” !! Glacial erratic , I assume? The spotlight effect of the light coming from above is very nice.
I like what you did to the sky in your rework, it is less distracting and the clone job looks well done and very natural, I would not know it was cloned from just looking at it. Color and saturation are a matter of subjective personal taste, but I could see taking this a bit warmer in the sky highlights and the moss, and bumping green/yellow saturation. Just my opinion, but adding some warmth might enhance the spotlight effect.
Oh, and welcome to NPN, this is a great first post, it’s a really neat looking image.
Thanks a lot for your comment Ed! I agree that the image became better after the cloning so that was great advice from you and others here. I will be trying different white balances to see what happens to the image! Thank you for the welcome it is nice to be here!
