(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
Ben,
Was I seeing things, or did you change the title? I think it was first something about the path? No matter, but I’m glad you changed it because I don’t see this image as about the path, although it’s clear there is a path. But I see this as about the light and the strong contrast between the dark trunk in shadow and the light trunk. It’s like a yin-yang kinda thing, if I can describe it that way.
Often times when it’s graphic with contrasts, this might be a good candidate for a b&w conversion. (ok, I played with it and I like it in b&w). To me, color isn’t adding much; in fact the (nicely) lit greens on the left kinda take away from the light vs. dark trunks.
Only suggestion really would be to burn down or drop the very brightest/hot part of the lit tree - but not so much you lose the contrast between the two trees.
Lon
Lon
I did gave you an answer via message . I don’t know if that is the right way to do this. But I thank you for your helpful comment.
I have to say this is a ballsy image. There is no way I would even attempt a forest scene with these light conditions. Yet it;s something we see every day. The reason, if I may say, you pulled this off is because you used the dark shadows of the contrasty light in your composition. The blacks are part of the design. It’s very instructive. The weakness of the situation was taken advantage of. In the end, this contrasty image is not busy or even chaotic. It still lacks the color of a more favorable light though.
Normally one would suggest to raise the shadows and burn in the highlights. But you already know that and are going for a different look. So that’s clearly not a ‘mistake’.
Ben, as @Igor_Doncov said, trying to do a forest scene in this type of light takes a lot of courage. Our eyes are attracted to strong contrast like this, but these type of high contrast forest shots are very difficult to do well. With that said you have done a pretty reasonable job with exposure/contrast given how harsh the light is here. As presented my nit would be to crop a little off the left, enough to remove the dark branch in the ULC.
I agree with Lon that a B&W conversion might be a better treatment for this type of high contrast scene. If you wanted to stay with color is a sunlit forest, then I often find using backlighting can be a more pleasing approach.
Thank you, Ed and Igor for your interesting comment and advice .Call it beginners luck making an image like this. I think most succes came from post processing in photoshop. And using the TK V6 panel of which I made a lot of study. Thank you !!
