I’ve just come back from a trip to the Barrington Tops here in Australia & came away with a few nice shots including this taken in a foggy forest walk.
For this composition, the idea was to use the tree in the foreground as an anchor to fill in the bottom right section of the frame helping draw the eye in the direction from the bottom right into the top left with all the fog/trees.
I generally stick to seascapes so I’d love some feedback on this
Thanks in advance!
Specific Feedback Requested
Does the overall composition work?
How does the colour look? (it falls into a triad with orange, green & blue as the dominant)
How does the dodging on the moss look?
Is there enough ‘mood’ & ‘depth’ in the image? (if not any suggestions on how to add more)
Anything else? I’d love any kind of feedback
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
Single-shot taken at ISO 500, f7.1 at 21mm & 1/4sec with a CPL on to get rid of the glare
Brought into Photoshop & camera raw for modifications to the overall colour,
dodging/burning for the moss and tk actions to play around with some highlights
For the fog I used light blue and a hard light layer
I think this is at least as good as your seascapes and would encourage you to shoot more. The most important thing with moss picture, I think, is to make them glow and you’ve done that really well on the roots of central importance. The image has lots of emotion which you’ve achieved using the blue and green colors. The composition is pretty good (the interest drops off at the far side of the tree). I might dodge a bit on the upper right area of the tree. One thing that puzzles me is why some of the trees are leaning to the right. Forests are strange in that sense. Trees can lean every which way but I think people expect there to be a general vertical orientation. But that’s really a small nit. I think this is a fine image.
Dale, this image has a lot of moodiness, it perfectly captures the quiet, almost eerie feeling of being lost in a foggy forest. The processing and the colors work well, and are very effective in enhancing those feelings. I agree with @Igor_Doncov, you handled the glow on the moss nicely, without it appearing overdone. Some others may comment that the fog looks too blue or green, but I think that is part of what makes this image work for me.
I’m not sure the composition fully succeeds at drawing the viewers eye from the tree on the right to the light in the ULC. The big diagonal root points the viewer from left to right. The sky immediately to the left of the tree is perhaps slightly brighter than the light in the ULC, and the diagonal root takes us to that brighter light in the right half of the image. You then have to go back against the grain to have your eyes wander to the ULC. This will work for some viewers, and for others it may not.
Here is another alternative to consider, with a strong left to right flow for us English speakers
This is mesmerizing. Enchanting. Inviting. It’s cool and green, damp and mysterious. The colors harmonize well and the moss makes me positively want to pet it. Ed’s flip does wonders for the flow of the image. Wow. Bravo gents.
