I took this image looking into a thick patch of young aspen trees. The density along with a smaller depth of field and side lighting allowed for a wonderful filtered chaos in the frame. It is grounded by the narrow trunks at the bottom of the frame.
Compositionally, how do you like this one?
Is this a composite: No
Great colors and texture by the leaves, complememted with the tree trunks giving a larger structure. Very good! IMO, the OOF choice could be discussed. It works to add to the feeling of the image, but mayby a larger DOF may have worked also. This is an interesting issue, recently also discussed in one of my recent postings. After some thinking, if I have to vote, I vote for the OOF choice
It is always a challenging creative choose to make! I used to stress over getting sharpness throughout on landscapes, but over time I have learned that a different mood can be applied using unsharp areas for a dreamy effect. I think it depends on the scene and what you see. I’m glad you like it! Thank you for the CC!
I like it. It conveys energy somehow. If it were mine I’d work on some color separation - you’ve got quite a range here, but I don’t think it’s being shown as well as it might be. The light is lovely, you’ve caught the interplay with the leaves quite well. Aspens are always such good targets. As far as the OOF thing goes, I wish it was confined to the back of the image or the less bright areas. As it is, the very center is OOF and it seems like a mistake. With scenes like this one that have a lot of depth, control of your focal point and your hyperfocal distances becomes crucial.
A very nice find but I have to agree with @Kris_Smith about the center and the color separation.
With autumn photography, I think some people fall into the trap of just showing a “wall of color” with a mosaic of leaf color. And often strong color alone is not enough to create visual interest. I think your choice to include the aspen trunks adds some structure to the composition that helps avoid the “wall of color” issue. And @Kris_Smith suggestion to create some further color separation between orange and yellow would also help add more visual interest. I would try some hue adjustments in Lightroom where you take yellow more yellow, and orange more orange to create some more color separation.
I think the composition works very well, and some added color separation would take a good image up another notch. Attached is a rework with an example of this type of hue shift.
Now that I think about the composition and how it is the center that is OOF it definitely hurts the image for me as well. I am glad you pointed that out as I will pay closer attention to that going forward! The color saturation and separation is definitely a good add as well to emphasize it.
I really like your edit! I agree completely that an image of color alone falls apart without structure and context. The trunks of these trees are so beautiful it would be a sun not to include!
