The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
This is another scene from North Lake near Bishop, Calif. In fact, I took it right after the one I posted earlier this week. (I visited most of the popular Eastern Sierra spots for fall color, but my two favorite pictures were at North Lake, for what it’s worth.) What I most liked was the combination of the fall leaves with the mist on the lake, along with the reflections. The mist gave an enchanted feel to the autumn alpine scene. I cropped tightly on those aspects. The only extraneous element is the reddish rock to the left, but I like it in there.
Specific Feedback
I’m mainly interested in feedback on composition but any technical points are good too.
Technical Details
1/6 sec, f16, iso 200. Sony 70-200 at 70 mm.
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
Vision and Purpose:
Conceptual:
Emotional Impact and Mood:
Composition:
Balance and Visual Weight:
Depth and Dimension:
Color:
Lighting:
Processing:
Technical:
I like the wider aspect ratio here. It suits the subject matter. At first the composition might seem a little right heavy with the dark trees at the top, but I still like it. I like the reddish rock. Great reflection and autumnal mood. The waterline seems a little tilted clockwise. It’s probably not and just a product of the angle you were shooting across the lake. It might be worth experimenting with to level it and see if it improves or hurts the image. Just a thought. I think the image has a strong cyan cast. And I would like to suggest posting larger images. It’s a lot easier to assess things such as focus, sharpness, noise, colors, etc. I think around 2000 pixels is optimal.
I’m not sure how I feel about the composition. I guess I feel like the right side of the image where the pine trees are cut off on the top of the frame make for a lot of tension (I’m also very curious what’s cut off and it just makes me wonder). I either don’t want to see them or I want to see all of them, however, I totally understand if there is something out of frame that hurts the composition even more by including it. I do like the mist on the water. It really adds to the Fall mood. I know how cold it can be up at 10,000 feet early in the morning at this lake. In fact, the last time I shot here I nearly frost bit my finger tips.
As @Michael_Lowe points out there is a very strong bluish/cyan cast to the image particularly the bottom half. I might also crop off the right side of the frame just to remove the pine tree and the aspen that half cut off on the edge of the frame.
I hope you don’t mind but I brought this into LR to see if I could remove some or all of the color cast and also try something with the composition. The colorcast was very difficult to remove so you might try reprocessing this image from the raw file and try and figure out where that cast came from. At the end of the day I’m not sure this crop helps the composition much or not.
Thank you @Michael_Lowe and @David_Haynes. The comments were very helpful. They helped me identify what most bothered me, but I didn’t fully see - the cyan color cast. I reprocessed the picture and it is gone. I’m not sure what caused it, exactly, but part of it was due to the in-camera white balance (cloudy). It was accentuated in the first edit. In the second edit, I also went with David’s crop.
Hi Brad,
This is a lovely scene with the aspen leaves turning gold and their reflection in the water of the lake. The light mist is also another wonderful element here as well. You have already gotten some wonderful suggestions from @Michael_Lowe and @David_Haynes that addressed my thoughts on this lovely image. IMO the image is improved with your rework, although the bank along the waters edge went from a little cyan to green. Nice to see the rework of the image at 2000 pixels.
