This is a photo I actually used for the Natural Landscape Photography Awards. It is probably my first ever photo where it was on an outing where I reacted on the conditions. Usually I go to a place hoping for interesting light and weather. I went to this place because I heard there might be snow in early October. It was taken towards the end of the day, when the snow was starting to melt and was quite wet. I was quite cold at this time and didn’t spend much time finessing the composition. Just stop on the trail and quickly snapped this. Maybe my biggest regret is not exploring more compositions here. Despite, it is by far my favourite photo of the outing and maybe the whole year.
Type of Critique Requested
Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
Conceptual: Feedback on the message and story conveyed by the image.
Emotional: Feedback on the emotional impact and artistic value of the image.
Technical: Feedback on the technical aspects of the image, such as exposure, color, focus and reproduction of colors and details, post-processing, and print quality.
Specific Feedback and Self-Critique
This image did well, but not well enough to reach the final stages. I would be interested what is necessary to elevate it further.
There are probably a couple of things I am not entirely happy with. First, is the amount of the darker forest floor. Maybe if there was more snow it wouldn’t be so contrasting to the rest of the scene. The second thing I am not very sure about is whether the tree group on the left is not a bit too far from the group on the right.
Technical Details
Full frame sensor (Canon EOS R). 24mm at f/8. ISO 100, exposure time 1/5 second.
I do remember this and I thought it was excellent. Your instinctie composition is really well done and I’m not sure you could improve it given the subject matter,
The problem with ‘tree/forest portraits’ is that it’s an insanely competitive genre and when you get to the final there’s a lot of taste involved and people can be more critical of minor things in an image. For instance, because of the melting snow, the foreground very red leaves are a bit messy and quite prominent. The brightest things in the frame are also on that left edge and left bottom corner which detract a little from the central of the photo.
I’ve had a little play to try to minimise the foreground through a bit of desaturation and I’ve also recovered a bit of contrast in the middle highlights (a bit of highlight recovery and then painting a little brightness in) and darkened that bottom left corner a little. I’ve cropped slightly too to make the lovely 90 degree bend in the top right corner close that corner really nicely (and get rid of the highlight in the very corner, replacing with the leaves). Most of it is to try to retain attention into that lovely tunnel in the middle.
A great picture and one your should be proud of (especially as an instinctive composition!)
Hey! This is a really cool shot. I always love to see seasons colliding. It makes for some great images. I can definitely see what everyone else is saying about the photo and their feedback so I won’t get into that much, but I did want to point out that I think the brightness of the photo is great. There is a style called high key photography and this reminds me of it. Very bright and cheerful.
