Late Algonquin Summer

[Kerry_Gordon]

REVISED (Slightly)

AFTER

BEFORE

Critique Style Requested: Standard

The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.

Description

I’m sorry for beating the same drum, but lately and perhaps for evermore my attention is increasingly focused, both in-camera and in post-processing, on mood. Most of my insights are coming by way of doing a recent online course offered by David duChemin called “Shooting What We Feel”. That course is closed now but you might want to keep an eye open for when he offers it again next year. At any rate, with regards to this image, one of the ways to intentionally create mood is through contrast. I have tended to think of contrast mostly in terms of tone – shadow and light. But, of course, contrast can be created in a multitude of ways including, especially in this image, through the use of colour.

I came upon this scene near the end of our month-long canoe trip last summer. The moment we landed at this campsite, and I saw these two trees growing and being together almost as one and knew I needed to make their portrait. Over the course of the two and half days that we camped there I took many, many pictures from every perspective – close ups to full scene. When I downloaded the images at home, I found this to be the most pleasing and revealing composition, and while I liked it enough to flag, it didn’t really excite me and so it sat for the better part of a year before I decided to work with it. I realized by this time that there was a specific mood I had wanted to convey when I took the picture – these two trees standing together in late summer when the rich colours of spring and early summer had started to fade and yet, the fall colours had not yet begun to show themselves. There is a certain feel to that time of year, especially on the water.
My first thought was that the colours in the image as I’d downloaded it were not consistent with the late summer mood I was after (see the “Before” image posted above). And so, my first choice was to shift the sky from blue to cyan. I liked the feel of it – not desaturated but rather accentuating a sense of the fading richness in the blues that seemed to speak to late summer. But then, the reds and blues in the RAW image were completely off. And this is where the notion of contrast came in. Cyan’s compliment on the colour wheel is orange and so I began playing with the HSL panel in Lr specifically with the hue and saturation sliders. At the same time, the blue infused greens were also not right and so I pulled back the blue in the greens, while introducing orange/yellow both with HSL, colour balance, and some light painting. I did a few other things as well in terms of texture/clarity, tonal contrast etc. but compared to the colour contrast, those changes were relatively minor. And this is the result, which to me, captures the mood I wanted to convey and suspected all along was buried in that image. Whether you are drawn to this image or not, I think you will agree that working with colour contrast completely altered the mood of this photograph.

Specific Feedback

The feedback I would like is the extent to which you are picking up on the mood I’m trying to convey – the enduring relationship of these two trees seen together in late summer as the richness of spring and early summer begin to fade.

Technical Details

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[Igor_Doncov]

I liked this image the minute I saw it. And I saw it as one those small versions at the bottom of the screen. The rework from the original is remarkable. I suppose what I liked is the directness and the simplicity of the statement. It almost goes back to a time in photography before wide angle and unique perspectives were used. The beauty of the subject matter ‘the thing itself’ carried the image. There’s a humble elegance here that you don’t see in an Adams image that tries to awe you. Personally I do like the decision to go with the cyan color caste and the overall warmness of the image. It’s warm without looking warm, somehow. It’s interesting in that you state that you camped several days and looked at this scene for many days, and you photographed it from many directions. It shows. There is an understanding somehow here. It doesn’t look like a snapshot. I find I have to spend photoless days at every shoot before I start really ‘seeing’. By today’s standards this photo is restrained and that’s a part of its appeal.

The only suggestion I have is perhaps to pull back the saturation of the yellow on the grasses right below the bushes on the left. Not the pine needles closer to the bottom. I’m not sure about that because I don’t feel that saturation on the large version. Use your judgment.

PS. I also love the sense of space here, the sense of distance. It’s about the tree, roots, and rock but the background adds so much. You just feel like letting out a sigh when you look at this image. You know what I mean?

[lorretta (Lorretta Clarke)]

I think the second reminds me more of a painting. It is my belief that old painting masters erred to warm colors and because we have grown up with these warm pleasing colors we are naturally drawn to them. I think if this was your intention, your have accomplished that. Thanks for the information regarding David duChemin

[Bonnie_Lampley]

In addition to the obvious changes in the individual colors, your changes made the overall palette more harmonious. In the original, there are (relatively) strong differences in the color of the various elements - outcrop, tree, leaves, ground, water, and sky. Your final version feels more cohesive, as if everything is a part of the same whole.

Igor’s right that your final version feels warm without looking obviously warm. Interesting. That warmth adds to the feeling of cohesiveness and harmony. For me, the subdued and limited palette does evoke a fading away. It also looks a bit old fashioned, like a faded postcard from the '50s. That color scheme, to me, speaks of nostalgia for the past.

[Kerry_Gordon]

@Igor_Doncov , @Bonnie_Lampley - Thank you both so much for your feedback, which has been incredibly helpful. Igor, your comments on the way this image is composed and constructed “The beauty of the subject matter 'the thing in itself carried the image” is very helpful to me in understanding part of why this image has the nostalgic feel that I was trying to evoke. That being said, I’m still not entirely clear how I managed that. Is it because the picture includes sky - a grand landscape - and is basically shot straight ahead or could this somehow be evoked in a more intimate image equally as well? Equally, your description of it as “being warm without looking warm” was something very similar to what David duChemin said when I showed him the image. I’m still trying to understand what actually creates that feel and whether it is essential to the ‘nostalgic’ mood I’d like to further explore. Equally, @Bonnie_Lampley, your allusion to “a faded postcard from the '50s” was repeated in almost identical fashion by another artist/photographer friend of mine who described the picture as feeling like “a faded Kodachrome”. I have this notion of working on a project that, for the sake of reference, I am tentatively calling “faded postcards”. But I am so uncertain as to how to create this effect without simply duplicating what I’ve done here. Obviously, at least from my point of view, I don’t want to create a series of images that are all cyan and orange - that I think, entirely misses the point. So, my mind is churning away, reflecting on how to evoke that mood and what are the core elements that are responsible for “the faded postcard” feel of this image. In any case, much thanks to both of you for spurring me on.

@lorretta - Thank you for taking the time to look and reply.
Loretta, I’m not sure to whom you are actually referring when you speak of, “old painting masters”. Rembrandt, Vermeer, Titian, and the Romantics, like Gericault certainly didn’t work with warm colours. To the contrary, in those painters we see dark shadows and chiaroscuro effects in accordance with the mood they were trying to evoke. Even modern masters like Lucien Freud, often chose a darker palette. Perhaps you are alluding to the Impressionists, who I suppose were drawn to the warm colours consistent with their favourite haunts in Provence and the south of France. But they are a very small sampling when we consider the history of Western art. Perhaps you could share with me more specifically to whom you are referring when you speak of “old painting masters”.

[lorretta (Lorretta Clarke)]

When I painted (some years ago now) we used the traditional colors of cerulean blue and burnt sienna, to give a warmer pleasing, and traditional painting look and the sky and ground in your second image, reminded me of a subtle lean towards that look.

[Kerry_Gordon]

@lorretta - Ah, I see what you’re saying. Appreciate the clarification. Of course, the reason they are pleasing is because they are almost exactly complimentary as I’m sure you know.

[lorretta (Lorretta Clarke)]

Could I ask about the title Algonquin? Just curious

[Kerry_Gordon]

@lorretta - Loretta, I’m going to give you the looooong answer on this. The Algonquian peoples (also known as Anishinaabeg) represent one of the largest cultural/linguistic groups among the indigenous peoples of North America and includes : Algonquin, Ojibwe, Chippewa, Potawatomi, MIssissauga First Nations, and more. This large group of indigenous peoples lived mostly around the Great Lakes. I live in Toronto, which is on the shores of Lake Ontario. So the land I live on was, before the conquest, the lands on which these peoples lived and flourished.
Now, more specifically, in 1893 a huge amount of land was set aside as an Ontario Provincial Park. This land, which is about a three hour drive north of Toronto, was named after the people that had used it as their hunting grounds and regarded this land as spiritually significant - Algonquin Provincial Park. The park is roughly the size of Yellowstone. It is an area of thousands of lakes and it is only possible, even to this day, to explore the park by canoe (except on a very few lakes that border the highway, no motor boats are allowed). I did my first canoe trip in Algonquin Park, my god, I was 9-years old, so, sixty-four years ago. In more recent years my wife and I have spent the month of August doing extensive canoe trips. We take all we need, including food that we dehydrate and prepare ourselves and disappear into the bush. Most of our trips have been in extremely remote areas of Northwestern Ontario and Northeastern Manitoba, but last summer we decided to return to our roots (routes ) and do a month long trip that involved paddling diagonally across Algonquin Park. This picture and many, many others are a result of that particular trip. I also do a much shorter yearly trip to Algonquin with a couple of close paddling friends and we’ll be doing that again this coming September. I have been working on a photography project that I’ve called “Algonquin: Root and Rock” . I have posted a few of the photographs included in the collection here on NPN. This is a collection that I plan to continue developing over many years and I think this picture here will probably be included. So, there you have it - “Late Algonquin Summer” - a tribute not only to the park but to the peoples for whom this park is named and who first recognized and celebrated its spirit.

[lorretta (Lorretta Clarke)]

What a great experience. I will look into that area when the hubby and I do more van trips. We have kayaks but they are more fishing types, not meant for speed nor distance (we inherited them). As to the algonquins, I ask because once I did a National geographic genotype test, it tells you which strand of migration your genotype took from middle africa. Mine came out the haplogroup x the rarest type and I share 18% of my genotype with Algonquin and (25% with Druze). I of course arent arogant to think Im Algonquin but I am always intrigued by my connection with nature, particularly rocks.