The photographer is looking for thoughtful feedback on the image as a whole, especially around the areas noted below.
Feedback Focus: Artistic + Technical
About This Image
In the South of Albania lies the old (and new) town of Gyrokaster. From its castle you get a very nice view on the neighbouring mountains. In February these were still covered in snow. The weather was what the picture shows: variable. This yielded some sunlight in between the clouds and the showers.
Feedback Requested
The main question for me concerns the composition. I think the lighting is OK and the snow is white. As you can see from the exif data, I chose a short tele instead of a larger wide angle. Could the balance between ‘foreground’, topic and sky be changed for more impact? Any suggestions about the format?
Technical Details
Camera: Canon EOS R6
Lens: EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM
Focal length: 105mm
Shutter speed: 1/1000s
Aperture: f/9
ISO: 500
Terrific landscape - or should I call this a cloudscape? What stands out to me is how the snow-dusted mountain appears to be hiding, or emerging from the clouds. To me, this is all about the relationship between the mountain and the clouds.
Just my impression, but there’s just not enough interest in the mountain side below the clouds. But to your question about the balance between the foreground and the upper part, I believe there either needs to be MORE of the foreground mountain side - OR perhaps none at all? Which leads me to my crop suggestion. Just a subjective thought, but without the foreground, I think the clouds enshrouding the mountain really tell a much stronger story. I could be way off though - I wasn’t there…
Xavier, you’ve got an interesting pair of pairs here… the mountains above and below are pair one with the clouds below and above pair two. I think you could enhance that pairing by making the lower stretch of mountains black and white to better match the upper peaks. Then you could get more contrast and details in the lower mountains. I also think that there’s so little going on visually in the t0p 1/4 that cropping to pano a bit above the dark clouds on the right would give you visual balance of the two “pairs”.
Hi Xavier,
This is quite the view you captured here with the mountains playing hide and seek with the clouds. My thoughts pretty much align with those expressed by @Lon_Overacker and @Mark_Seaver. Lon’s crop distills this scene down to just those wonderful clouds and mountain flanks covered with snow. Very nicely done.
Thank you for your thoughtful comments and for the crop suggestion. I will look at it again, when I’m through ‘developing’ all the other pictures I took on my trip.
See you soon,
Xavier
What stands out to me is how the snow-dusted mountain appears to be hiding, or emerging from the clouds. To me, this is all about the relationship between the mountain and the clouds.