The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
A look at some of the lovely dormant foliage on the big island in the middle of Horn Lake. It looks like you can paddle through, but you can’t. You can, however, get out of the boat if you want and walk across to the back, but it’s a lot more fun to paddle the edges. I think this is basically a semi-floating peat mat anchored by trees and large bushes. Horn lake is probably a kettle bog so varies in height according to rainfall and snowmelt. Paddling it is like being on a river in the sense that you can’t see far ahead and it’s not open except at one end where the island peters out.
Specific Feedback
I took some pains to line up the slice of water going into the back and to accentuate the colors of the leaves in the red plants. The contrasts intrigued me and since so much of our plants are dormant, they are in this state a lot of the time. I have some shots without that tiny tree in the LRC and they just don’t work as well. Funny.
Technical Details
Handheld messing with new polarizer
Lr for processing - because a global adjustment to even out luminosities made the sky all weird, I masked them both separately for individual treatment. It was a cloudy day, but not stormy so I didn’t want too much drama up there. Instead I used a variety of color masks to manage highlights and shadows. Also the HSL panel to play with color luminosity - especially the yellow grasses that edge the island.
Hey Kristen, you’ve done a really good job to balance the image and make sure the sky doesn’t draw away from the interest below. That can be really challenging and something I mess up quite often! The spacing around the image works well, my only concern is with the ripples in the water at the bottom of the frame. They keep pulling me down to the bottom. I’m wondering if they are from the boat and if it would even be possible to make an image without them. I messed with a 16x9 crop but it felt too cramped that way. Not a deal breaker by any means but I wonder if it is possible to get the glassy reflection like you have just above.
Thanks Davids, who I promise I don’t really get mixed up.
I was hesitant to post this one because it feels hum drum to me in some ways, but I really like these kinds of subtle landscapes so I did and I’m glad it resonates with you.
Without that little bit of water @David_Bostock, the depth just didn’t translate. In summer the foliage in back is filled in as well, so I think that also adds dimension rather than a solid wall of leaves.
The ripples are from the wind @David_Wallace - I was standing on the bank for this one and yeah, I wish the reflection was less jagged, but I did my best to darken and soften by reducing exposure and clarity with a radial mask. Some days the wind just never quits.
I love scenes like this in our corner of the universe. The range of colors is very attractive, and I like the way you let the water guide us back into the forest edge. For me personally, I find the bright sky to be distracting from the main area of interest, which I see as the strip of golden grass separating the water from the reddish shrubs. I struggle with compositions like this, as I am attracted to the small components of the scene but am always drawn to trying to put the larger landscape in context. I’ve said “I” and “me” far too often in this post, sorry.
Thanks @jefflafrenierre - glad you like it, but the sky has to stay the way it is. If I darken it, weird artifacts and halos come up and well, that’s just bad. Glad you like it otherwise and don’t sweat the me/myself and I in your response. It’s sometimes the only way to frame thoughts.
This not ordinary. Not by a lot. Wonderful greens and lovely depth with a nice variation in tree sizes. The little one is just plain cute! The dark reflection in the quiet water is a lovely feature. Too bad about the sky – a little darker might be nice. I hate it when I’ve reached the limits of pulling out detail. Happens too much.
Yeah, the sky is troubling @Diane_Miller. I may start over with a linear profile and see if that helps. That little tree is so great isn’t it? Without it, the composition just seems unfinished. It’s funny how often that happens.
I’m not sure how you could make the non-sky portion better. I wonder if a second conversion just to work on the sky and layer them and mask? It could be tricky but maybe doable.
Well, I would sure love to go paddling there! It looks like a perfect place for that and must be so calm and relaxing. With respect to the image, I think that you composed it very nicely. To me it feel balanced and has that beautiful earth-toned colour palette that I like so much.
How beautiful. And what an interesting place - a floating peat mat in a kettle bog! These kinds of northern forests resonate with me - not humdrum at all.
You know, I didn’t even notice that little tree in the LRC until I reread your comments. Maybe it works as a counterpoint to the other limey-green trees on the left side. I love the ripples in the foreground; I agree they add depth.
That sky is a bit bright, though, for how I imagine an overcast day in this environment (of course, my imagination may be totally off-base). I just had to try adjusting the sky. I brought this into PS, did a sky selection with the TK8 action, made a curves adjustment to darken, then added a Hue/Sat layer clipped to the curves layer and desaturated and darkened it a bit more. I then took a low opacity brush and brought more of the curves mask down into the trees, to get the light areas the sky mask missed. Then I made a Darks3 mask (TK8 panel again) and brushed off any darkening that had gotten into the tree tops. As much as I could tell with the jpg file, this didn’t make any weird halos, but YMMV with the raw file. My 2 cents, anyway.
Oh boy, @Bonnie_Lampley, you might make me revisit this after all. Nicely done. I’m so glad you took an interest and the time to play with it. It was relatively bright, but cloudy so it’s hard to really judge sometimes.
And yeah, it probably is a kettle bog which are famous for their peat and other plants that do well in low-nutrient environments like black spruce, bog rosemary, pitcher plants and leatherleaf. There is no inflow of water except for rain so they have relatively short lives as water bodies.
