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Other Information
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Image Description
Ice forms on a Beaver Pond
Technical Details
Canon 5DSR
Canon 70-200 f4 IS II
f/11,1/30s,+0.3,iso100
Tripod
ACR/PS/Nik SilverEfx
Specific Feedback
Does the image work for you?
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
Hi Guy,
I am loving what you created here! The range of tones is quite beautiful and the lighter tones lend an almost ghostly feel to this scene. The image is chaotic and a lot to take in, but everything seems to be perfectly placed. You have managed to mesh all the vertical lines of the trees with the horizontals lying on the surface of the pond. Beautifully done.
This feels like organized chaos. Organized because almost everything in the image is flowing either vertically or horizontally, in a neat and orderly pattern. Chaos, because there is a lot to take in with the scene. It’s beautifully framed. I rather like the bending branches framing the right side of the image compared to the straight, bright white tree on the left side of the image. Even the reflection is orderly but chaotic, and I mean that in the best way possible. You had perfectly still water. The black and white conversion is well done with lots of contrast. I agree with @Ed_Lowe regarding the ghostly feel I get with the brightest whites. It almost feels as if the reeds and grasses are moving. Eerily ghost like and well done.
I quite like this one, @guy. It works beautifully as a black and white, and all the tones feel perfect to me. My only slight nit is the one darker tree/branch that comes out of the water at an angle on the left center of the frame. I feel like it keeps drawing my eye to it, and then out of the frame. If you aren’t opposed to such things, I’d consider cloning it out. I think without it you’d have a perfect composition here.
I like this one. It’s unique. At first I thought it was too busy but when I downloaded it and put a frame around it it stood up very well. I notice that you like to push the boundaries between chaos and order in your images. I agree that that makes them more interesting and prolongs the viewing. It generates attention.
Hi @Ed_Lowe, @David_Haynes, @Igor_Doncov, @annika , Thank you all for taking the time to consider and comment on this image. I’m glad it was found worthy of such kind and thoughtful attention.
Wow, talk about chaos - and subsequently order from chaos. This works beautifully! B&W is the perfect treatment here because of a couple things. 1. B&W greatly reduces the chaos because the image becomes more about tones and contrast and 2. B&W also allows the shapes, lines, etc. to also reduce the chaos in to something visually pleasing.
The only suggestion I have would be a very slight cropping all the way around. Mostly to eliminate the lone trunk along the UL edge. To me that pulls my eye. And to a lesser extent, the UR and LR corners have those pairs of branches. Actually they work very well in framing both those corners. But for me they border on just not being enough framing to keep. So I’m wondering if just a slight crop left and right should do the trick without changing the impact or vision here. And I don’t really see anything top/bottom that would be improved by a crop, so never mind there.
A little bright? Maybe in the cattails, but otherwise, I really like the contrast and range of tones. Some advice that I recall from my old camera club days and b&w prints, there was one judge who always commented, “you should have black blacks and white whites.” And this certainly has that.
