Wandering on the beach, the beautiful swirly bark of this driftwood caught my eye. And then I noticed how the beautiful outer bark was eroded off in spots, exposing the rough inner wood. As I was working on processing this, I started contemplating how we show our beautiful exteriors to the world, but keep our inner thoughts to ourselves.
Specific Feedback Requested
Did the usual dodging/burning, and adjusted the colors a bit to bring out details. I’m not too happy about how the URC looks. There’s something odd about the way it looks, but I can’t put my finger on it. Does anyone else have that impression?
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
a7r3, 78mm, f/16, 1/125s, ISO 400
I love this one, Bonnie. My first impression of this image was that it’s surf breaking on a rocky shoreline. That remains how I see this. It’s more of an abstract to me than wood. I tried to process this to convey that idea but really failed. There’s also a fine square composition of the left side but I don’t think it’s any better because you then lose the nice swirls in the upper right. I don’t see anything strange about this image. If you could give us a hint about what is strange it would help. Great job.
PS B&W seems like an obvious choice for this image but I didn’t like the conversion.
Wonderful image, Bonnie. Love the textures and movement going on here. The URC doesn’t bother me as it seems as though it is just a curved portion of the driftwood. Very nicely seen.
I think its “odd” because it causes my eye to flow up and out of the image in the URC, it pulls me in the wrong direction. I tried a horizontal flip, and that more or less eliminates the issue, but I’m not sure it makes the rest of the image look better. I think some variation of what @Igor_Doncov suggested might help, a square crop of the left 2/3’s of the image.
i do love the color combination of brown, silver and grey, i find that very appealing.
Hi Bonnie, I really like this. Nice intimate scene. I also see waves crashing on the shore.
Regarding the URC, I tried cropping off the top, but that didn’t work. I brushed in some warmth and slightly brighter in that area and that seemed to help a lot. Just a thought. I also think bringing down the highlights just a tad might provide more depth…
What attracts me the most in this image is the pattern on the white part of the wood. I am not sure how I feel about the dark semi-circle on the left edge of the frame. I would like to crop them but I would hate to lose anything that is going on in the ULC area. But like Ed, I love the color combination here: very subtle, very elegant.
Weathered drift wood always grabs my attention. There is so much detail to take in. your image in no exception. I like this a lot and the URC doesn’t bother me.
I, too, love looking at and photographing drift wood . There are usually so many things to see. In this image I see the face of a person deep in thought; perhaps a bit troubled. I like it as presented.
It’s a good image and worth the time to experiment. Even if you don’t come up with something that satisfies you it’s a stepping stone to something new and improved.
Bonnie, I just happened to spend some time looking at landscapes. I think this is great, with lovely colors and textures. I see a stretched, bearded face on the left, just above center. I have zero problem with the upturn in the URC, it seems perfectly natural. A slight pano crop (bit off top and bottom) would emphasize the downward sloping left to right flow and reduce the up sweep in the URC.
