The photographer has shared comprehensive information about their intent and creative vision for this image. Please examine the details and offer feedback on how they can most effectively realize their vision.
Self Critique
The mountains and sky seem reasonable to me. The foreground was busy so I fogged it a bit.
Creative direction
The aim was to capture the layers and tones of the mountain range in all their natural complexity.
Specific Feedback
Aesthetic feedback would be appreciated.
Technical Details
Canon R5 Mark II, Canon RF 100-500 @ 167mm, ISO 100, f/8 @ 1/25, tripod-mounted. Processed in ACR and PS CC. Masked the sky and mountains as well as the lower foreground to achieve some balance in values.
Description
One of our favorite types of scenes. Thought we could try to dramatize it a bit.
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
Hello Fred. The colors in this image are lovely - the contrast of cool/warm hues really makes a photo strong in many cases. The main issue I am having though is with the two very bright areas in the sky; while perhaps they are not overexposed to creating clipping in the highlights they are still so dominant, and pull my eye to UL and LC areas very strongly. If you can tone those down a bit to bring the sky into a better balance exposure-wise, it would help. I would also suggest that since the foreground was too busy for you, to eliminate it by making the crop just at the base of the hills. Although the fogging technique helped, I must admit - and perhaps further cropping would make the image way to small to be useful…The layers in the mountains are lovely, by the way.
Thank you for your help with this and for the very kind words. I have worked on the photo further. I am not sure if the sky is yet what you asked for and I really prefer not to crop it down any more. I worked with the foreground and, yes, I did alter it somewhat to eliminate the manmade structures. Please let me know how you feel about it at this stage. I’m really trying to learn with these critiques.
I fully agree with @brenda_tharp on all of her points. I have tried a crop as she suggested. If you use it, you may need to upscale the image to compensate for the lost pixels in cropping. I upscaled the image about 3.5x using Topaz Photo AI. It doesn’t show this size here because I used NPN’s size guidelines. I also wonder if the magenta and yellow in the sky is a bit oversaturated? Nice image.
Thank you for your example. Here is another look at recropping and desaturation. There was more of the clouded area in the original image above the earlier crop. The image is over 8200 pixels in width originally. I appreciate your encouraging remarks.
I think it’s there, Fred! This last rendition has toned down those bright areas without being too saturated, and the crop works for me. Thanks for reworking it - and to @Larry_Greenbaum as well for his remarks.
