Leaves like stars

I was back home visiting my parents for the weekend when I decided to go on a hike through a beech forest. It was midday, and light streamed though gap in the canopy perfectly illuminating one of the smaller branches. I tried to expose for the highlights and captured this image.

Orignal version:


Reworked Version:

Type of Critique Requested

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

I struggled a bit with deciding how light the background should be, and how to crop the image. Is it too unbalanced?

Technical Details

50mm, F1.2, 1/800s, ISO 100. Converted to B&W and minor adjustments to the highlights, shadows and contrast.

3 Likes

Hi Julie,

This is so nice! I like the composition, the angle of the branch and the shallow focus. I’m a fan of those wide open shots with fast lenses. B&W is icing on the cake too. Wonderful.

I wouldn’t change the comp at all. I could see a bit of a crop off the top to get rid of that one vertical branch in the far background on the upper right. But that’s minor. You asked about the background. While it doesn’t overtly distract from the subject, I could see trying to darken it some more to make the subject stand out even more.

This is a really wonderful image, Julie. Well seen.

1 Like

Hi Julie,
My thoughts pretty much echo those of @David_Bostock .Those couple of small tweaks he suggested would elevate an already beautiful image another notch IMO. You caught the light just right on that main branch. Good call on converting to B&W as this is nicely done.

1 Like

Welcome to NPN!!!

I really like this. I enjoy the out of focus / DOF use here and the framing. I think it is balanced just fine!

1 Like

I agree – it’s wonderful!! The BG, detail and DOF suit me perfectly. My only nit is the tiny bright area where the stem exits the frame at the top edge – it pulls my attention. I don’t mind the branch just to its left as it is darker and OOF.

1 Like

Great concept and a great image. Good of you to make the brightest part of the image the in focus leaves in the center of the frame where our eyes will go. I actually don’t mind the tree trunk and other elements of the background being that visible. It tells me this is in a forest. Forest have clutter and I like that you are including some of that clutter if only just barely. I might burn the upper portion of the branch the leaves are on just a smidgen but only just a bit at the edge of the frame where it’s a little bright. Other than that, I love this image as is.

1 Like

Hi Julie,

I like this quite a lot.
I’m just now getting into the B&W genre so this is extra appealing to me for that reason.

To be honest, the only thing I see that bothers me is a brighter area about 75% of the way up from the bottom on the left side. As I follow the leaves around, they keep leading me to that area and it seems it would be better if that were burned a bit.

The good thing about NPN is you get lots of different thoughts, the bad thing about NPN is you get lots of different thoughts :smiley:

Now all you need to do is decide which thoughts you like (if any) :smiley:

I think it looks balanced as presented and the crop look good too IMHO.

1 Like

Thanks for the helpful comments! @David_Bostock @Ed_Lowe @Matt_Payne @Diane_Miller @David_Haynes @Merv These small details are hard to notice myself so I appreciate the feedback. I did try different apertures, but with a narrower aperture the forest floor became too distracting.

My aim this day was to figure out what type of photos I could make on a bright and sunny day. With a full-time job it’s not always possible to go out shooting at sunrise or sunset, so this was a fun experiment. I’m uploading an updated version with some of the suggested changes. Is the branch still too bright? I only adjusted it slightly. Let me know what you think.

1 Like

Hi Julie,

This is great! The adjustments you made certainly have improved the image! :slight_smile:
I like it even more than I already did.

Just remember the most important part, which is to only apply suggestions to your work that “You” like or agree with. This is your image, not ours :slight_smile:

We’re only trying to help by providing our personal thoughts as options for you to consider.
I see people from time to time trying to please the people providing critique and it can become frustrating to the photographer to do that. (Not that you did that here, it’s just a general note for new members).

A note on posting your reworked image, just edit your original topic at the top and add the newly reworked image above the original image, then edit to the title to “Your title + Rework” or similar so others will know that you have posted a reworked version.
This will allow people to quickly switch between the original and the reworked version to see the differences.

Like the way it is below :slight_smile:

Reworked Version:


Original Version: (below)

Hi Mervin,

I agree that suggestions are just suggestions, and only I can decide what suits me. I understand why people want to please other photographers, who doesn’t like praise, but in my case I think it’s going to be helpful to be to compare the original version to the reworked side by side. That way I can decide what changes I liked, and what changes I didn’t.

Thanks for the tip about adding the reworked photo to the original post!

Julie,

I’m gonna start right out say that I consider this Fine Art. I’m talking in the league of the Westons, and other masters (one’s that I’m not familiar with cause I’m not a student…) This is beautiful; there is a graceful presence, a flow and even mystery portrayed here. Love what you have seen and presented.

I’m gonna post an edit below, but first I want to make some comments. Here on NPN we have had many discussions recently and in the past about image critiques. There is even have an article “The Art of Image Critiques”. And recently I watched some videos about critiques, self critiques etc. My comments here are actually more about my own growth as a photographer, artist and a critiquer of the same.

Let me explain. At the crux of NPN right in the “about” section, this site has always been about the “Art and Technique of nature photography.” In other words, not only the technical aspects, focus, color, saturation, composition, cropping… cleanup, etc. etc., but also considering the art, the story, the message, the vision, the intent.

Not too long ago I would have immediately wondered about the out of focus leaves, the shadow areas with no detail… what am I to look at when most everything is blurry.? These are technical aspects that are to easily judged, based on our own personal expectations, experiences and desires.

But I’m learning to step back to try and learn how to evaluate and not be so quick to come to any conclusions. Absorb what information is available and evaluate the photograph not just from an objective, technical point of view - but also listening to what is being said. This is growth for me.

So… I now recall your first post and the dialogue on that image. A very shallow depth of field, out of focus element right up front, etc. etc. We found it you intened to have the out of focus elements and you were exploring shallow depth of field… I remember and so looked more closely at your info, and discovered - you shot this wide open at f/1.2!!! It hit me. You saw this - you intended this, you created this. I literally now think and can see this hanging as a large print in a prestigeous art gallery exhibit. Kudos. Well done.

This is not about leaves and whether only a few are in focus. It’s actually not even about the light (although that’s the critical element,) but it’s about the design, the flow of those brilliantly lit leaves and how the softness follows the design fading from the front, to the bottom, the back… It flows like a musical Treble Clef note (and I’m not a musician either). Toss in the dark mystery of the forest beneath…

So, I’ll stop waxing on… but I still wanted to offer my opinion/suggestions. And Merv is right - you’re getting a lot of them! Which is great!

First, I think the bg is great the way it is. The overall image is dark enough, and the leaves are lit plenty all with beautiful light and contrast, that I wouldn’t want anything in the far back any darker. Not a distraction for me. And getting back to the “technical” first thoughts I had - I first thought the bright branch up top was also a distraction to be eliminated somehow. But NO! It’s elemental in your design. Any alteration to that element is merely opinion and tweaking, but it’s presence to me is key. From a tecnical processing perspective, my opinion it could be toned down. I don’t want to remove it, but keep it’s presence without letting it be a distraction; slightly darkenend and cloned out the little spur. Lastly, I added a little canvas bottom and left while coming in just a skosh from the right - just for equal space around that beautiful Treble form. All personal choices, which will be different person to person.

Thanks Lon for the kind words!

I understand how difficult it is to critique photos that are of a different style than your own. Taking a step back and looking at it from the angle of the photographer’s style and message. I enjoy minimalist photos more than epic vistas, so I would have the opposite problem: where am I supposed to look when everything is perfectly sharp, in focus, and have high saturation or contrast? For this image I did try other apertures, and maybe I could have shoot it at F2, but the ground got to messy and distracting. Maybe I could have focus stacked part of the branch to get more in focus, but then it might look too unnatural. I’ll be the first to admit that I have shoot way too many photos at F1.2, F1.4, but I have learned a lot from it. I think I learn more from my mistakes than my failures. I just hope my failures happen when I’m visiting places I can easily return to. I will probably return to this forest this summer to experiment a bit more.

As for the background, I am thinking that I’ll try to burn/dodge it to get a bit more even light. I’ll look more into the changes you suggested also. I’m thinking of printing this, so I’ll probably re-edit this a few more times.