We spent most of Thanksgiving (US) week camping in Yosemite. I did a lot of hiking about, along the edges of the Merced River. The fall color was still strong, in spite of the previous snow storm, although a lot of the trees lost green leaves when the temperature dropped so suddenly.
Of course, I was enthralled with the small scenes along the river banks. A bit of cloud cover made for an interesting scene with the pine needles piling up behind this stick.
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Any comments welcome. I cleaned up bits around the edges, but there may be some that are still distracting.
Hi Bonnie. This is a wonderful, intimate scene. Well seen. I like the angle of the stick in the frame with the needles mostly on one side. The few leaves on the other side help to balance it all out. I might consider dropping the highlights a bit to tone down the clouds, especially in the lower right. It might make the needles a touch more prominent without taking too much away from the clouds.
What a great way to spend your Thanksgiving day, Bonnie. Wonderful composition with great detail in the twig, needles and leaves. I love how the clouds provide such a soft background.
You are great at finding these intimate scenes Bonnie. I like the reflection of the clouds but agree with David on toning down the highlights in the LRC.
Bonnie, I am just getting back into NPN after about a year off, and it is wonderful to see this superb intimate landscape. The reflection of the clouds gives the image lovely mood and the square aspect ratio is perfect. I too really like the diagonal stick composition. No nits here, just a couple of ideas: might the green leave in the center under the pine needles be a minor distraction? The three leaves at the top of the stick look to have halos around them as if you were doing some cloning that may use some cleaning up? Super image.
I checked the raw file and the halo-looking things are in the original - a factor of surface tension, I think. I did consider those green leaves and took them down a bit, but not all the way. I rather liked them there.
Wow Bonnie, you seem to see these wonderful little scenes in anything. I am absolutely sure I would have just seen it as an old stick in the water. You have created a lovely wee image out of it. I agree with David that the floating leaves balance things nicely, but I also like the bubbles and areas of surface tension around the needles that add further interest. The only suggestion from me is that I would possibly blur the clouds in the area above the stick a bit to reduce the overall contrast of that area so that it matches the lower portion…maybe. Cheers.
