I find that compositions with shafts of light in the forest to be about as good as it gets. But such compositions are so hard to make. By definition shafts are created by shadows and the light is always moving. By the time you realize it’s worth taking and have gotten your gear out and ready and composition framed and tripod set up … it’s all gone. It’s so frustrating that I have learned to pass up such eye candy. However, if you come across such a vision while walking with the camera at the ready and the tripod on your shoulders, you have a chance. Such was the case here.
The rest I owe to Fuji greens.
Let me know how to improve this. As you can see from the previous post I listen to all.
Glad you had the tripod on your shoulder, it ended in a very compelling image.
I wouldn’t change much, the composition is very well framed, the triangles created by that gorgeous tree are very appealing. My eye landed on those brighter leaves but the surround area is full of interest.
The greens spot on indeed, very lush and vivid.
If anything, i would clone the those branches on the ULC and the LLC, minor distractions but to me they are a bit off of their surroundings.
Cheers
Igor, you captured the moment this time.In a stunning image. It looks like a fairytale to me.I love the lights, the darks and the composition, Don’t worry I should leave it as it is.
wonderful composition and lighting, with the draping moss on the left balanced by the brighter patch of light on the leaves to the right. I love the variation in color/lighting on the leaves.
Sweet looking woodland scene, Igor. The lighting is gorgeous as are the lush variation of greens of the surrounding forest. So glad you had your gear ready to go when you spotted this beauty. This is being really super picky, but I find myself wishing for a little more of the ferns in front of the tree or just crop them out all together. This image has such a calming serene vibe to it that I find very inviting. Great eye to spot this among all the chaos.
It’s interesting to see you post an image with bold color for a change. A lot of your images here are very successful with more subdued color pallettes. But bold color works well with this subject, and yes Fuji greens are wonderful (I miss my Velvia 50).
I think it’s the nice light here that drives the image more than the color though. The light on the hanging moss in the ULC is just exquisite. I’ve taken a few trips to the rainforests of the Northwest, and often had issues with bright backgrounds making processing more difficult. But you composed this very well here to hide much of the background, while still showcasing the light in the center.
I also think that Y shapes are very powerful composition-ally, and you have a good one here. And the nice light is centered around the junction of the Y. Great image Igor, I’m enjoying it as presented, no nits from me.
The light here is wonderful. Glad you had the camera ready to take this. I really love the fern in the lower right. The only thing I think may help is to burn or clone the bright branch in front of the moss on the right side a little over half way up the frame. That pulls my eye quite a bit for such a small element.
I love this, Igor. This is like Florida, but probably nowhere near as hot. The lush greens are wonderful and your composition is spot on. My only nits are the tiny branch in the ULC and in the mid right. While I was cloning those out, I also dodged the highlighted areas in the hanging moss and center moss just a little too, but I’m not sure if that helped or hurt matters!
Very moving image, Igor. The Y shape in the main tree is a very strong compositional element and it provides a very solid anchor for my eyes to explore the rest of the scene: the leaves on top (I wish I know what those maple-ey leaves are called) and the ferns below. The ferns, especially, move me very much; they remind me of my time in the Redwoods area. @Bill_Chambers’s clean up of the twigs are good in my opinion.
It’s interesting that you mention that. During the shooting I felt that it was important to get that fern into the frame as much as possible. There was another fern in front of it which I didn’t want however. So I spent some time orienting the camera to precisely get the frame between the two. Overall, I don’t think anyone but a photographer would give that fern much attention.
The rest of the composition fell into place on its own. I did take a second shot closer to the subject with the intention of concentrating on the lighted area and having less background. But I later realized that the branch was good in the context of the larger forest and not on it’s own and therefore went with this current version.
Yes, I like to mix things up like that. Not only color but mood and type of image (metaphorical vs straightforward). The next one will be darker like the previous one. These rainforests had several themes I wanted to pursue. It took me several days to get comfortable up there because I didn’t start shooting until the 4th day and the work from the first day of shooting was throw away work.
It is the Hoh Rainforest … in July. All that moss hanging from the ‘Y’ tree was probably green in May. I like the current colors. So some things did work out.
What to say, an amazing small scene. I like it very much. No improvements needed! A very minor thing, if you want you could erase the small branch in the ULC.
Thank you for your suggestions. They seemed to deal with border control issues and twigs and leaves entering into the frame. I have addressed these. Most seemed to be along the bottom of the frame. A closer look revealed some white dots on leaves in the upper right corner. I started to remove these but I suspect that most of this is due to the natural process of aging. July is really pretty far in the growing season and you don’t expect fresh young leaves. So I left them as they are. I posted what I hope to be the final version next to the original.
It just keeps getting better and better especially your revision. I have really enjoyed reading the comments and seeing the suggestions being applied to the image; so much so that for purely personal reasons I’d like to see the discussion continue. Soooooo, do the two dried fern leaves in the LLC draw unneeded attention?
