I was initially drawn to this scene by the wonderful light. As I was moving around I noticed this pointed stump which, with the slight lean, seemed like a mysterious figure moving through the forest.
Mainly interested in thoughts on the color (have tried cooler and warmer temps), as well as the treatment of the ground foliage and trees (I did some HSL shifting) and lighting.
1/125s, 145mm at f/4
processed in Lightroom
Hey Jack! I have enjoyed your comments this week on others’ images - you’ve pointed out many of the exact things I noticed. I can certainly see why you were drawn to this scene, the light is wonderful. I think the color is spot-on as it is, as it looks very natural and yet very striking. Not too warm, not too cool.
I actually didn’t notice the pointed stump until I read your caption, and I think that’s because of what’s going on with the trees on the edges of the frame. They’re just too bright and prominent for me to feel like I can really get into the midground and background. My initial thought was to crop them out, but after trying that, I felt there might not be enough room on the sides, nor enough room above and below to comfortably fit in a 4x5 without squishing/scaling. I also think they give the scene some extra depth. But the background is really the meat of the shot, and everything else should be supporting it, not distracting from it. If you keep the edge trees in, I think they need to be darkened significantly.
There are also a couple strips of bright spots near the right edge, between the trunks, that should be significantly darkened. One potential crop would be just inside rightmost bright strip, but still keeping (darkened) trees on the edges. You could even warp some of the right side tree back in at the bottom so it doesn’t feel too thin/cut off down there.
Those two bright branches in the upper right should probably be cloned out, but they could be significantly darkened if you’re not okay with that much cloning (it might be worth the effort though, given that the branches are also out of focus and the shot has a lot of potential).
Some smaller stuff: there is a bit of foliage up at the top edge near the center, lit up gold, that could be darkened, along with a couple tiny bright spots along the edge nearby. The ground cover looks quite natural, but I think lowering the contrast and saturation, and darkening it down there would help draw attention into the frame to the wonderful background. You could keep the ground cover lighter as it reaches the light, and just darken from the bottom up.
Suggested edit - I hope this helps:
Jack,
Love that pointed stump! I noticed it pretty quickly and agree - I like the analagy of a creature moving thru the forest.
This is such a wonderful scene, topped off with the beam of light across the frame. Very cool.
I had the same initial thoughts as Alex and I think his edits are excellent for this scene. I guess if you have enough pixels you could really just crop everything except for the central part ofthe image, but then you lose a lot of interest as well. So great job by Alex!
The only thing you could tweak might be the white balance and warm up that light. But that’s totally personal preference and something that could easily be over done.
No doubt this was one of those times in the forest you won’t soon forget.
Lon
Thanks for the helpful critique @Alex_Noriega . Now this is really looking more like what I wanted to convey. Totally agree about the edges, wish I’d noticed that. I wanted to keep the subject somehow not immediately apparent but quickly identifiable. Your edge changes and cleaning up the bright distractions and those pesky branches are also really helpful. @Lon_Overacker I hadn’t experimented much with much tighter cropping because I thought I might lose some of the distance from the “figure” and mystery, but I’ll take a look.
Alex, thanks so much for all the time and energy you’ve spent this week!
This is a killer scene, Jack! I really enjoy it! I think I saw similar stumps on my trip to the Redwoods, lol. They are quite photogenic. I personally like this a lot and I’m not sure I would change much…
Thanks Matt, appreciate the feedback! I can imagine those redwood stumps being a few times bigger and having their own character–would love to get down there with a camera at some point.
Also, I have you to thank for joining NPN recently. Thanks for mentioning this on your podcast–it’s been a great experience.
Pleasure is all mine - thanks for joining the community here!
