Last fall I took a drive on a dirt road and encountered a huge mud puddle with fallen aspen leaves. I decided to get super low with my telephoto lens and capture the reflection of the distant trees in the puddle because I thought the floating leaves looked like fog. I might have also had an edible…
Specific Feedback Requested:
Not really looking for feedback except on execution and composition which I feel are the weakest aspects of the image.
It’s always fun to play with your focus choices in a reflection shot, especially when there’s so much distance difference between the water surface and what’s being reflected. That difference works very well here. I’d try a crop to 4 x 5, although 8.5 x 11 might also work to remove the trunks on the right.
I wouldn’t change a thing on this Matt. You’ve got detailed Aspen in foreground and also distant – one heck of a 3D reflection. The tree at right, to me, looks like a soft focus foreground feature, and the floating leaves (yes, like fog) perhaps like horizontal branches, as though you shot this through foliage, reinforcing the illusion that this reflection is not a reflection. I have a similar shot of a puddle in Lundy Canyon, but it’s not as good as this one!
