Please share your immediate response to the image before reading the photographer’s intent (obscured text below) or other comments. The photographer seeks a genuinely unbiased first impression.
Questions to guide your feedback
Do your eyes follow the radial lines? Is the depth of field pleasing? Quality of light?
Other Information
Please leave your feedback before viewing the blurred information below, once you have replied, click to reveal the text and see if your assessment aligns with the photographer. Remember, this if for their benefit to learn what your unbiased reaction is.
Image Description
Tried to utilize back lighting
Technical Details
Nikon 800E, 80-400 mm lens, f11, 1/40th second, ISO 2000
Specific Feedback
Your general reaction when first viewing the image
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
Paul, I am drawn to the simplicity of this subject. The lines and the depth of field are both spot on. The strong vertical stem and the fanned-out fronds create a very pleasing composition.
The play of light glowing through the green fronds is very pleasing. However, I am distracted by the very bright, almost white area on the mid-left portion of the scene. It keeps pulling my eye away from what I imagine you intended to be the point of interest where all the lines meet. Thanks for sharing this interesting view of your world.
Lovely backlight, and very nice how the yellow tones fan out from the radiant. The bright area on the left doesn’t bother me so much for being bright because it matches the lighter areas between the fronds on the right – or are they reflections? (Doesn’t matter.) What I find draws my attention to that area is the green blob. That entire area should be amenable to easy selection and could be a good candidate for blurring.
I’m not familiar with tropical foliage, but is this a fern? I would take it to be a palm.
Thanks for pointing that out. As I critically look at that lower left corner, the small triangle of yellow jumps out at me. I should be able to clone that out and then blur and lighten the dark green area. I’m no expert on tropical flora, and I was only in the area for a day and a local described the nature of the plant,
Yes, one of my favorite plants to photograph, especially, as you have so ably shown, with back-lighting. It is definitely not a fern, probably a Fountain Palm (Livistona chinensis). If you have not loaded on a plant ID app yet, I recommend doing so. I use Picture This. While I am not a scientist and am not obsessed with always knowing names, I like to at least have that option so I can more easily learn about what I am seeing. I hope you’ll get back to a place where you can spend more time with these lovely subjects.
Paul, I’m enjoying the mix of lines in the sharp areas and how they contrast with the oof background. The brightness on the left doesn’t bother me at all, it fits well with the brightness just above the stem where the leave branches out. I also like the soft area along the bottom.
