Lost

Things change at higher elevations. Well into the clouds, scenes become atmospheric and drenched in moss and abundant life.

Rimutaka Ranges - Wellington, New Zealand

1 Like

Michael,

My very first thought, was the opening scene from Raiders of the Lost Arc where Indian Jones comes tumbling out with that giant boulder on his heels… :grin:

Seriously though, this does have great jungle atmosphere especially with the hazy/mist throughout.

You didn’t mention any technicals, so not sure what your intensions were with this capture. It looks like a fairly shallow DOF with mostly the vertical trunk on the left in focus. Some areas are soft indicating the shallow dof, while it looks like motion blur in some other areas like the top and also the plants at the bottom of the main opening.

I do like the mood and atmosphere here. Personal choice and preference, but you could also experiment with boosting the saturation (not the blue though - keep the mist a bit more neutral).

Just not sure if the softness of the mood, light and atmosphere is enough to overcome some of the softness and bluriness of the details. Hope that makes sense.

Lon

What great atmosphere! The bottom right triangular area that is of higher contrast doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the scene, though. Certainly, the contrast in the foreground of a scene like this will be greater than in the background, but the transition from contrasty to misty seems odd.

Michael, I am a big fan of your work, but this one just isn’t working for me. I like the soft, mysterious mood of the forest, but the composition just isn’t as strong as some of your other images. The very strong 45 degree diagonal lines of the two trees pull my eye up and out of the frame. This issue is exacerbated by having the trees lead to the bright plant in the URC. My eye keeps getting drawn to the URC, when IMO, the composition should instead be trying to hold my eye in the foggy forest. I also find the two white sticks in the lower middle of the frame to be minor distractions, but they could easily be cloned away. In a nutshell, there is just too much going on here, and the image could benefit from some simplification of the composition.

My first reaction was what a creepy looking place. My second was what a fascinating looking place. They’re both right. This just draws you in into its interior with a series of concentric holes. It’s a very effective composition. The mist adds to the mystery of the forest. I do agree that the urc draws a bit too much attention. You could crop it out and still have a good image but that bromeliad is a nice feature. This is just how I pictured New Zealand to be.

Hey all, sorry for the late reply, been busy.

@Lon_Overacker Thanks for the feedback. I agree with the issues of softness and blurriness - My SS was probably around .4 to 1.5 seconds, can’t remember exactly but ideally it would’ve been higher to capture the image without any movement in the branches. It was very, very windy though.

@Bonnie_Lampley I agree that the high contrast corner doesn’t really fit. Was difficult to balance the contrast with the need for depth in the scene. Thanks for the feedback.

@Ed_McGuirk Thanks for the feedback, I didn’t notice the sticks in the foreground and now they’re bugging me!

@Igor_Doncov Thanks, I love it here, very lucky and I know it :slight_smile: