Any feedback is welcome. I am studying new techniques, trying to learn as much as I can.
ISO 64, 125mm, f/2.8, 1/125
Processed in Lightroom, turned into black and white and cropped. Tweaked the clarity a tiny bit, otherwise no other processing.
Lovely high key image Nichole with some wonderful structure especially the vertical lines by the trees. One thing you may want to consider is cropping off the top of the frame. My eye was drawn to the white space up there. I enjoyed the darker parts of the trunk bark against the white.
This is a lovely study in texture. With that in mind, I agree with Alfred about the sky at the top. It catches my eye and draws me out of the frame at the top, especially because the beautiful wispy branches point upward. There’s also a faint trunk very close to the edge of the lower left side of the frame that catches my eye (this is really a small nit). I’m thinking something like this (I also increased the contrast a bit using a curve, to bring out more of the cool texture). Anyway, this really is lovely.
Thank you for the feedback. I actually struggled with that part of the photograph, thinking I might be cutting off something of interest.
Thank you, this is the part of the image I struggled with the most. I really like this edit quite a bit.
Hi Nichole, this is wonderfully high-key black and white image. Well seen and nice processing too. I think the suggested changes by @Alfredo_Mora and @Bonnie_Lampley help to simplify and strengthen the graphic nature of the image. I have one other recommendation: When I look at the image, my eye automatically goes to the two main trees at the center of the image. They look to me like they’re leaning to the left. Trees always go their own way and it’s sometimes hard to determine if the camera was straight or not. I would recommend a rotate to the right so that those trees look straight. Again, something that adds to the strength of the image.
Finally, I am not sure what color profile you chose when you exported the JPG, but Photoshop and Affinity Photo both complained and assigned their own grey scale profile.
Even with black and white images, I would recommend staying with the sRGB profile when you export. Most browsers and photo apps can handle the sRGB regardless if the image is in color or black and white.
Hope that helps, you have a fantastic image here and with just a few tweaks, it’s a perfect candidate for a fine art print.
Cheers,
David
I can go either way about the crop of the sky. In some ways, it adds quite a bit of mystery, and since it’s no brighter than the rest of the image, it does not draw my eye off of the frame.
Lots to like about this one. Well seen.
Thank you for the feedback! I doublechecked my export settings and it is sRGB from Lightroom. Is there potentially a difference because it is LR?
Thank you!
Hmmm, not sure why LR would make a different. Oh well. Thanks for the reply, Nichole.
My PS also complained about the file profile. When I opened the file I expected I was going to move the dark point of the curve to the right to increase the contrast, leaving the whites alone.
Below is a snip of the image as imported with the curves open.
I pulled the curve down which should have increased the darks with only minimal affect on the lights. But that is not what happened - just the opposite.
Below is an adjustment that should have completely blown out the highlights and only lightened the shadows.
I’m sure you will agree this is not as it should be.
Check out other images shot about the same time as this. Post one here for us to try out (it doesn’t have to be pretty). This will help us see if it is just that image or if it is others.
You may need to go back, laboriously, through ALL your settings, starting at the camera. If you are not sure about one of your settings, ask here.
@nichole This is a beautiful photo and would be gorgeous on a large canvas.
I like the light bleed from the top. I would consider rotating the vertical lines to be vertical. Also, I think that if you would have stopped down away from wide open there would be more definition in the textures in the photo. Not more contrast, but more definition.
Nicely done Nichole, with very little to critique. 
Could it potentially be the Adobe Monochrome profile that I used to convert the image to black and white that caused the issue?
Thank you, Gary, for the advice. I will give that a try next time. I like the texture, the trees look delicate and lacy.
I don’t think so. I use it on many of my B&W shots. What really puzzles me is why the curve is weighted to the left and not the right. It is a very high key image and would make more sense if the curve were flipped left to right with the tonalities on the right and little on the left - all the blacks are light greys in the original. In LR History tab, click on the first setting at the bottom of the stack then make a virtual copy and try it over again to see what happens.
Though I don’t see why it would happen that way, is it possible the camera mode was set to monochrome?
I don’t think so. The histogram is the opposite for me. Here is what I did.
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I like the image as is, and it becomes more and more amazing the larger you make the image when you look at it. The only minor comment I have is that you maybe could rotate the image slightly to make the tree trunks vertical.
One of the choices in the curves tool is to “Show the amount of:”
The choices are:
Light (0-255)
or
Pigment/ink %
The default is Light, but if Pigment is selected, curves will work the opposite of what normally happens.
@nichole, your image is set to Pigment…if you change that to Light Curves will work normally.
Still doesn’t explain the Profile thing though. 
Fixed that! I couldn’t unsee it once it was mentioned! Thank you
