Leaning Giants

Image Critiques Landscape Critiques
1

UPDATED

AHG3-north-fork-sauk-river-forest
AHG3-north-fork-sauk-river-forest750×1000 1.15 MB

ORIGINAL

AHG3-leaning-giants.jpg
AHG3-leaning-giants.jpg750×1000 1.21 MB

Critique Style Requested: In-depth

The photographer has shared comprehensive information about their intent and creative vision for this image. Please examine the details and offer feedback on how they can most effectively realize their vision.

Self Critique

Hi all. I’d like to hear your thoughts on this image, which I made a couple weeks in the Washington Cascade mountains.

Overall, I like the subject and the composition, except that the upper right background area was a bit bright, and pulls the eye away from the two big tree trunks.

I’ve done quite a bit of adjustments to bring the two trees forward from the background, perhaps too much?

Creative direction

I really want to showcase the two large trees in a moody forest. And I always love including vine maple leaves around these large trunks.

Specific Feedback

Have I overdone the processing or vignette?

Technical Details

68mm focal length on Sony a7RIV, 1.3 sec, f11, ISO 200, two-image focus stack, circular polarizer

Description

I saw these two leaning giants with a vine maple between them while hiking down the trail. The two trees, one Douglas fir and (I think) one hemlock are spaced probably 20-30 feet apart, so I positioned myself to bring their bases visually closer together, with their tops overlapping a bit. This formed a triangular “arch” between them to host the small vine maple tree.

Critique Template

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1 Like
2

Great forest scene! The detail in the trunks stands out well against the greens.
That bright area in the middle of the right trunk edge is a bit distracting.
Well done !

3

Brad,
The processing looks spot on for my tastes and not overdone at all. The soft lighting is sublime and I like the diagonals with the two leaning tree trunks. I particularly like that birch/aspen along the right edge. Beautifully done; no suggestions from me.

4

I really like this image and I love the super powerful triangle made by those two tree trunks. The background in the upper right corner of the image doesn’t bother me – meaning that I don’t personally find it distracting and that I think it adds depth to the image. Of course, you could choose to darken it which would make the trees even more dominant which it turn would completely change the mood of the image so yeah, I think you could go either way. It all depends on where you personally want to take this.

5

Hi all. Thanks you for your comments and suggestions.

Sandy: I updated the image to get rid of that bright area to the right of the right tree trunk (see updated image above), which gets rid of that distraction. Thanks for the suggestion!

6

Really like this - especially how the angle of the right side trunk and the smaller tree in the background are very similar.