Misty Woodlands

Critique Style Requested: Standard

The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.

Description

I went out for an early walk in our local forest on a cool misty morning, looking for fall color. It’s been a rather muted fall this year in NH, so I was just wandering. This scene caught my eye with the bright yellow and red leaves and the cool misty bluish background. I liked the contrast. I also liked the multicolored leaves, and that they had less mold on them than most.

Specific Feedback

Is this contrast pleasing or too much? I didn’t do a lot of processing on this image. This scene was calming and peaceful to me even though there was contrast in color. I was using some selective focus with the f8, trying to bring the closest leaves into sharp focus and letting the rest fall away. I did try other apetures, f5.6 thru f14 and liked this one the best.

Technical Details

Canon R6 100-400 EF lens with adapter 400mm 1/160 sec at f8 ISO 4000
I used primarily LR and noise reduction and some image clean-up in Photoshop.

2 Likes

Mary, I like how the lighting lights up the colored leaves. I’m not finding a lot of interest in the darkness on the left and at the bottom, so my inclination would be to crop those out, but that does depend on the “story” that you want the picture to tell. The light/dark contrast is quite dramatic.

Thanks Mark, I kept the crop as is because the colorful tree branch really stood out in this spot, and I was trying to recreate that feel. I will play around with it a bit more, appreciate your input!

I like the color contrast as well. It is fairly strong but to me is pleasing. I also like your depth of field choice as it helps separate the leaves from the background.

I really love the colors and how the leaves seem to be floating in the air. I like the tree in the upper left as it adds to the depth of the picture. The only thing that bothered my eye were the little branches in the upper middle. As they don’t have leaves on them they stand out. I would maybe clone them to get a cleaner image. But really lovely. I feel like the leaves are coming out of the computer.

Thanks for your input Dean, much appreciated.

Thanks Tamar, I can see those branches, and agree it would be good to clone most of them out. I had cloned out some others, it was a bit of a messy scene there. Thanks for you input!