General editing. I did basic edits and a little bit of dodging and burning.
What artistic feedback would you like if any?
Mostly composition. This is what I always struggle with.
Any pertinent technical details:
Shot this at Rocky Mountain National Park during sunrise. The wind was brutal and that limited my options for finding compositions. Had to settle at this location that was somewhat sheltered from the wind. Because of the wind had to bump up the ISO to reduce the shutter speed and minimize the motion in the trees.
For the geeks: sony a6300, 16mm, f/8, 1/60s, ISO 800
I know that location very well. You captured some great light on Notchtop and had pretty good conditions. The wind is brutal up here most of the winter, so it can make it a bit challenging. Your exposure is excellent and overall processing is good.
Composition does seem to be your main area to improve. I would have loved to have seen Notchtop a little more central than it is. It feels very much on the edge of the photo and not like you are trying to make it the focus of the image. There is a slight feeling that the image is tilted to the left. That may not be the case as the wind bends the trees back that way, but you can overcome it by slightly tilting the image to the right. I also feel like there is a little bit too much space on the top above the peak. If this image were mine, I would crop some of the left side to help make Notchtop more prominent. See my rough example using a 4x5 ratio.
Thanks @Erik_Stensland! Starting the hike up at 5 am was totally worth it. For some time while hiking up to Lake Helene I had my doubts about the weather but everything pan out, minus the wind but I know how bad it gets in Estes during winter.
I like the 5x4 crop. I’ve been sitting on this image couple of days and the fact that Notchtop is too much to the right was starting to bother me. I didn’t want to crop it because I like how the foreground rocks where leading into the background (didn’t even try to crop it) but now I see that it can work.
Real nice elements here. I would agree with Erik about cropping off the left, but I would not go as far and I like the bottom left as uncropped. I find the big rock on its own at the bottom kind of stops me there. It will be fun to play with and see what you end up liking best. This was definitely worth the early start.
I too like Erik’s crop. I agree with Harley’s note that a bit more space below the rock would be good. I also like how Erik cropped from the right. Now it feels like you’re looking through the trees rather than a wall of trees on the right.
Nicely done Jose, given the blustery conditions. Great first light on the peak with some favorable clouds.
I like your cropped repost best. I think it’s important for this scene to have the rock field as it does work to lead the eye up and through the frame and also lessens presence of the large boulder up front.
The new cropped version is better than the original but not as good as Erik’s imo. You did provide more space below the boulder. But Erik tried to center the mountain a bit. The new crop feels weighted to the right. All the points of interest are center and right. I would crop the left off to the previous crop as well as the sky.
