Moody Mountain Morning with Reposts

[Marylynne_Diggs]

Reposts:
Color, more contrast, retouch of left side sky, 4x6 instead of 8x10

Monochrome in LR:

Original:

Critique Style Requested: Standard

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

Description

I’m trying to get my snow game back in business, and it’s a challenge. I went up to White River on Mt. Hood last week after we got 2-3 feet of snow. I didn’t expect quite the crowd that was there, sledding, tail-gating, swinging sleds on strings around their heads in a crowd. It was a scene. It’s been 10 years since I’ve been there, and I chose a weekend. Lesson learned.

Nonetheless, my goal was to get up the river enough to get beyond people and get the mountain with some leading lines. In the past, I’ve gotten beyond the two ridges of trees to the lateral moraine, but this time, I wanted to get the river itself since it can be nearly covered later in the season. And then I noticed kids were sledding on the near side of the left ridge too, so getting beyond them would be a challenge. With a broken snow shoe strap and a dog that didn’t appreciate children and sleds, I quit at this point and did what I could.

Specific Feedback

As always, I’m interested in any and all feedback. I have 4 versions of this general composition, each exposed a little differently, more room to the left or the right, but the conditions were similar the whole time. In particular, I’m wondering the following:

1. Is the foreground too busy?
2. Is the snow too undefined?
3. What would you do to improve on this: brighten and texture in the snow? crop out some of the foreground? Bring more drama to the sky?
4. Try try again, preferably on a Tuesday?

Technical Details

Canon 5D4 with 24-105mm at 24mm
ISO 200, f/13, 1/320
Handheld
Cropped to 8x10 to encourage near to far rather than lateral viewing

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Critique Template

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Vision and Purpose:
Conceptual:
Emotional Impact and Mood:
Composition:
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Technical:

[Michael_Lowe]

1. I don’t think the FG’s too busy. If anything I wish the s curves in the streams didn’t keep getting lost in the snow. Maybe another shooting angle?
2. I don’t think it’s too undefined. Nothing seems to be clipped. There is some texture to be seen.
3. I think the sky looks alright. Nice blue sky intermixed with clouds.
4. I think it needs a little CW rotation.
   
   

[Mark_Seaver]

Marylynne, The big sweep left along the river and pull back right of the mountain works very well. The snow is nicely white and the touch of blue sky is important. As something to try, you might do some dodging/burning in the mid-tones to add more texture to both the snow and the clouds in the left half of the sky.

[james7 (James Hendon)]

Hey Marylynne – My take is that this is a superb location but the conditions were stacked against you, mainly the white sky. If you were to shoot it again, using that 24MM to get right on top of one of the stream flows, to me, would give you some great foreground drama, contrast and detail while retaining the sweeping sense of place.

[Ed_Lowe]

Hi Marylynne,
This looks like a winter wonderland with all of that snow. I like the way the two open channels of water direct the viewer to the treeline on the left which then directs them to Mt Hood. I do like the drama with the clouds along with that area of blue sky in the URC. I hope you do not mind, but I did a rework with a couple of thoughts I had. Overall the image looks a little flat so I added some contrast along with a little crop of the FG to place the open channel of water on the right a little closer to the LRC. Just my opinion of course. I would definitely go back on Tuesday; nothing wrong with working a lovely scene a little more. Who knows, you may get lucky and not have to deal with the crowds.

[Marylynne_Diggs]

Thanks everyone. It looks like this Tuesday is not promising. After a week of 50 degrees up there, we have 13" of roadside snow today compared to 31" when this was taken. Snow predicted for next Friday, which makes next weekend another mad-house, and so Tuesday-Wednesday the 27th-28th are my plan at this point.

@Ed_Lowe : I like your recrop and contrast treatment. I also did a black and white conversion that I’ll share below with a 4x6 crop to keep thinking about that option.

@james7: The last time I was there (10 years ago), I stayed below, on the flood plain, and shot just as you described. Lots of kids flying down from above this time, so I opted to take the small ridgeline where they were starting instead of their destination. I keep thinking we need an “adult swim” day up there, but I guess that is any school day.

If we get another foot of snow at the end of the week, I can stay on the floor without tripping over buried rocks, use my repaired snowshoes, leave the dog at home, and take my time. That’s the plan this time. Of course, amount of snow changes EVERYTHING, as you can see in this images from 2016. I’m just going to hike up the flood plane and try to get up to the moraines and see what the day brings.

2016 Photograph from Nearly Same Location:

2016 Further up the River:

Quickie Black and White Conversion in LR:

[David_Haynes]

The foreground is definitely NOT too busy. In fact, just like @james7 mentioned, I would use one of those streams to lead the eye directly back to that far off mountain.
It would be great if there was more shadowing and/or texture in the snow but it’s certainly not a deal breaker.
For me, I think the imbalance in the sky is the weakest part of the image. The mountain sort of fades into the sky and then you have the blue portion way off to the right corner making the image feel, at least to me, a little bit imbalanced. The low contrast left portion of the sky is not great. I do like cotton balls right above the peak but the rest of the clouds don’t do much for me.
I think I would go again right after a storm so that the trees have more fresh powder in them, and get really low over one of the streams that could lead the eye to the mountain and hope for a great sky as well. This is a great start and it shows potential for the area but the flat sky is not ideal. It’s possible to maybe add a lot of contrast to left portion of the sky and see if that makes things better because there are some ripples there but they’re hard to see.

Oh my, just now seeing the black and white version and I find it to be much better. The sky looks pretty good in this and the mountain is much more separated from the sky. I also like the additional canvas on the right side of the frame. Much better. Bravo!!!

[Marylynne_Diggs]

Thanks, everyone. I posted the final versions of these frames. To get anything measurably better, I gotta go back. Poor me, another trip to the mountain on a fair weather day. Stay tuned…
ML

[Cathy_Proenza]

I like the black and white the best! It somehow simplifies all the other elements in the frame so the leading lines are more apparent. The sky texture also renders better. I’ll also look forward to whatever you get on a fair weather weekday. Too bad that nice places turn into mob scenes on weekends. We obviously need more nice places.

[John_Williams]

I apologize for being late to this ML, but wanted to comment, especially since I was up there around the same time. (We went in on Friday and out on Sunday, the weekend after the big snowfall.)

I find it interesting that I almost always shoot this same scene hiking in. In fact, I have one with the same “doubled” stream in the foreground from this recent trip. However, once I return home and compare my other images from this area I never seem to choose the ones from this vantage. I honestly think it is because of the way the peak doesn’t align with the river; it always feels just a little unbalanced to me. It’s not that this is a “bad” view, it’s just that I always like images from closer to the mountain better.

With that out of the way, I think this composition is one of the better ones from this area close to the parking and where the families play. The two arms of the river are nice leading lines, and the the mountain towers nicely above. I prefer your edits, with my favorite being the BW.

When you say you have gone past the ridges to the lateral moraine, do you mean where the forest fades and the view opens up? I seem to always prefer the view from there.

Hopefully we get some snow and can both return to play more! (If we don’t get a better snow pack, we may have to skip wildflower season and move directly to forest fire season this year!)

[Marylynne_Diggs]

Hi John,
No apologies necessary. Yeah, I’m posting below some images from 10 years ago where I like to pause for lunch, cross the branches of the river to the moraine, and then go a bit further for more intimate scenes and less obstructed grand scenes.

Pause for lunch:

Cross the snowbridge to the moraine if there is sufficient snow to do that:

And play with more intimate landscapes around my favorite, curved tree and the walls along the moraine:

There was a time when the families didn’t make this quite as difficult to reach, but I just have to adapt to the new reality. Snowshoeing up through the trees instead of along that sledding ridge should enable me to get to my preferred location more efficiently. It used to be that we would go along the sledding ridge because the snow was more packed, the view more constant, and the sledding crowd present but manageable.

I thought we would get snow up there this week, but that system fizzled, and next week looks like it could fizzle as well. Let’s hope we have a fabulously snowy February and March!

ML

[John_Williams]

Oh, very nice! We normally camp in the edge of the trees up and to the left of your lunch pause, but this time we camped up on the flats where the PCT runs above the high ridge to the left. It was a bit of a grunt to get up the ravine to the PCT.

We had thought to camp on Rainier next weekend, but I’m not sure the snow will justify it, and rain may be part of the mix. (I hate snow camping when it rains.)

[Marylynne_Diggs]

Do you access your camping destination via the Boy Scout lot and trail or park at WR and just veer toward the trees for camp when the mountain beckons from the right?

Sorry that I turned this more into route planning than photo critique .
ML

[John_Williams]

We normally park at WR, fight our way through the families, and climb up to the trees on this slope:

We then snowshoe through the trees, roughly following the edge that borders WR.

[Marylynne_Diggs]

Thank you. That’s what I do too, I have gone through the trees to avoid the families—basically straight up from the 12:00 position of the parking area and emerging on the slope you circled. You can see a white patch to the left your circle. That’s the end of the tree based route where I have gone to avoid crowds and enjoy the trees.

ML