Late to the party (+ Rework)


Version 2 with a darker background. Next is the original image first posted before the rework.

I took a photo walk just six days ago with a friend. Taking advantage of the mild winter temperatures (we’ve had days in the 70s F – or 20s Celsius), we knew we’d find some flowers already blooming. We did. To our surprise, though, we were also greeted by some striking backlit fall foliage in one area of the park. With taller trees providing some partial cover, I could position myself right under these leaves and capture some of the light that filtered through.

Type of Critique Requested

  • Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
  • 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

How does the bokeh contrast with the leaves? I had to reduce the saturation on the leaves because they appeared too red to my eyes. Is the fact that only the center leaf is in focus detrimental to the overall photo? They spread out a wide area from the center point. Not wanting to do focus stacking, I went ahead with the softer focus for the other leaves.

Technical Details

Shot handheld with a Sony ILCE-7M4 at 1/640 sec, f/6.3, ISO 400, edited entirely in LR (with preliminary Topaz Photo AI prep).

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I love the contrast of the bg greens and blues with the leaves’ red, yellow and orange hues. I also like all those bokeh circles, as well as the transparent border. However, I would like to see the bg a good deal less bright as it seems to be competing with the leaves in intensity, even if this reduces the visibility of the circles. It’s certainly a beautiful winter find, Egidio.

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First off, thanks for your feedback and comments, Mike. I appreciate your looking at the image and offering suggestions.

I uploaded a version 2 with a darker background. When I compare them side by side, I can see the subtle difference is noticeable. I even noticed the main leaf’s details more with a darker background. I didn’t want to go too dark as I was trying to maintain the image close to what my eyes saw. As I know these things vary from person to person, I would be curious to see others’ reactions to the two edits.

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Egidio, For me, the 2nd version with the darker background helps to put the spot light on the leaves. Nicely done.

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Egidio, this shows how different winter is around the world, with the colorful leaves and the greens in the background. While the darker background lets the leaves stand out more, I prefer the first version as it has me thinking about the entire “beautiful day” scene.

Mark, your thoughts were precisely what I had in mind in trying to convey the atmosphere of that beautiful Texas winter scene a few days ago. Perhaps that is something that I need to add in future posts what my intentions are regarding the edits I make. Thanks for your feedback.

Linda, thank you for your feedback. You might want to see part of the comment I made to Mark’s remarks above. I believe I’ll add my editing choices in future posts here.

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