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
I’m curious, what is the first word that comes to mind when you see this?
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
This is my second take at this scene with the first being a couple weeks ago and that can be seen here: Whispering Trees and Flowing Waters
This time, I changed the composition a bit - placed the mountain farther left in the image and processed it a bit differently and obviously the conditions were totally different too.
I’m also uploading the colour version though I’m not sure if the colour adds much to the scene though I’m curious which you prefer.
Technical Details
Equipment: Canon 5Div with the Canon 90mm tilt-shift lens (tilted for maximum depth of field and shifted down to keep the trees vertical)
Exposure: 1/5 sec at f/13, ISO100
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
First let me say that the composition of this over the former is superior - more balanced. But when you get to this level in photography, playing by the rules can also result in predictability. I mean there is nothing I could say about this composition that I would change - you have the river as a leading line and the trees framing the mountain perfectly. Still, to me it feels flat. But it is always going to come down to the mood you are trying to achieve and I’m not quite sure what your intention is here. What mood do you want to evoke - majesty, quietude, dynamism … to me it feels unclear. Suggesting more contrast or the like would be, from my standpoint, shooting in the dark because the intensity and dynamism that would result may be far from your intention.
The issue of black and white or colour brings up the same issue - intention (i.e., mood). So, in this case, for me at least, it isn’t that the colour doesn’t add anything because it certainly does, in the sense that a colour version would be entirely different. That being said, the colours are striking but I would like to see what would happen if you played with the HSL sliders a bit. I do find the orange a bit too saturated, for example, but the potential for something quite striking is there. The orange, blue, and greens are great colours to work with and depending, again, on the mood you want to evoke, I think you have a lot of raw material to work with in the colour version.
Tom, I offer this critique knowing that you are a fine photographer with a lot of experience and I am assuming that, like me, you are trying to move to another level in your work. So, I hope this critique may be helpful in that way.
Hi @Kerry_Gordon , thank you for your in depth critique. You’ve given me a lot to think about and I truly appreciate you doing it.
Those who know me know that the one thing I struggle most with (in life) is expressing myself using words. When I came across this scene a couple weeks ago, I was immediately drawn to it. I’ll try to describe what I felt but in all likelihood my description will come up short. To me, the scene before me felt wild, untamed, and timeless – untouched by humans. I felt the grandeur of the wilderness and felt the meandering, slowly flowing stream pull me in. To me, that stream and the trees is what I want the main characters in the story to be. The mountain sets the place though being the prominent peak that it is makes it hard to be a secondary element. That’s kind of what I was going for… The warm orange light on the mountain (in the colour version) changes the story completely and makes the image about the mountain with the stream and trees playing more supporting roles. That’s not to say that is bad, but it is a different story then I intended to tell. I will do as you suggest and experiment with the colours in the colour version more none the less. As it is, it doesn’t grab me as much as I’d like so maybe I can do a little bit more.
Ah, your description is the key to making this your photograph. “Wild, untamed, and timeless”. Now that could mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people but none of that matters as long as you know what you mean. You know already that the orange as the camera saw it, is not aligned with what you felt. But that doesn’t mean you can’t work in colour. It isn’t after all, what you literally saw that matters but rather what you felt. You can manipulate the colour in any way you want that helps you create the mood - wild, untamed, and timeless - that you’re trying to evoke. And not just colour - lighting, contrast, texture etc., etc., etc. There are so many ways, for example, that you can heighten those features that you want the reader to be focused on and diminish their attention on other areas - reducing clarity, decreasing contrast, muting the colour and, on the other side - spotlighting, dodging and burning, and all the other technical “tricks” that you have at your disposal. But if you know what mood you’re trying to evoke I believe you’ll know it when you’re moving in the right direction. Of course, how we create mood in black and white is no different except, of course, for colour. But look at all the ways in which we can create mood through tone, light, contrast. In that way, colour or B&W, as long as we have a clear sense of the mood we’re trying to evoke, we’re not just shooting in the dark, trying everything and anything and hoping for the best.
Much improved composition! I’m torn between the colr version, and the B&W. Both have great merit. The color version really pops, but I think the overall mood of the B&W is most compelling.
Really fine work!
I am a huge fan of Black and White Photography. My favorite style. The Tone and Soul is all there. Beautiful image !!! you might try to vignette this image. Great job on location and capturing this beautiful place !!!
Honestly, aside from a better leading line provided by the river, your previous image of the same area I think was much better. First, the sky in this version is very plain and holds no drama, compared to the previous image, the sky with those clouds really sets a mood. The mountain, even though you do not consider it to be the main subject also add more drama to the overall photo in the first rendition compared to this one. The previous mountain had much more contrast both in tone and in texture and again I think adds a sense of wildness that counters the quite stoic nature of the trees and the lazy meander of the river. A third thing I noticed, which does not sit well with me, is the tall tree mid-left in both renditions, but in the current one, it bothers me that the top of that tree touches the ridge line of the mountain, while in the previous composition that tree just slightly juts above the ridge line. All that being said, I still think the leading line in the new composition is better and leads the eye into the scene much better. Too bad there is no way to combine the best of both. Oh, and the B&W version is nicer. I think the bright red of the mountain overtakes the scene completely.
When I get some time (hopefully) this week, I want to go back and play with both the black and white and colour versions of the image to see if I can make them better. And Youssef, good catch on that tree - I totally missed seeing that.
I prefer the mono version because the bright colours confuse me and I do not know where to look. I do believe the photo needs cropping as the trees on the extreme rhs do not add to the photo, ditto the river in the immediate foreground. I have taken the liberty to crop your photo to my taste, but certainly appreciate others will disagree.
This photo attracts me because of the amount of pointy bits and triangles, triangles being the group of trees I have included on the right, the mountain, the somewhat lighter trees in the mid lhs and some of the shadows in the extreme foreground. There are also other lesser triangles throughout the image.
Tom,
This says wilderness to me; one of those wild places we need to cherish. Both versions are quite nice, but my favorite is the B&W one. The three main elements; the stream, trees and mountain all share equal billing perfectly for me and balance the image rather nicely. My only suggestion would be a slight crop from the top as the sky is featureless. Beautiful image.
