I called this photo art because I bumped up the saturation and intensity of the green and brought out the blue in the rock that was barely evident in the original. The mosaic nature of the lichen is real.
This was taken with my i-phone as I was looking for birds to shoot with a long lens. Processed in LR and PS.
Allen,
This is wild! I think a great subject for you to take some liberties - this turned out awesome. And yes, the “mosaic” is prevelant - again, a great subject to push the abstract. In fact, is this a spolier alert - that this is rotated and/or flipped? What’s fascinating is that this works in any orientation and/or any number of crops. for me as presented, I would crop the bottom a bit including just past the brighter lichen in the LL. But what the hect, it’s abstract, why crop at all?
That is some wildly rendered limey-green. Very cool.
Lon
Fascinating abstract. I think the saturation bump is quite appropriate. I don’t think it has gone to the level of psychedelic so still very pleasing. My only thought is that the lichen on the UL corner is too close to the corner for my comfort. If not cloning it out completely, I would consider lowering the saturation a little bit there.
Thanks for the comments @Lon_Overacker and @Adhika_Lie. I found them helpful will try them out in the next iteration.
Allen, you’ve got a really fine flow of lichen across this rock face. Bumping the saturation fits the graphic/abstract nature very well. The blues are a fun extra.
Allen, I absolutely love shooting lichen patterns (just ask @Jennifer_Renwick) and you found yourself a good one here. Composing these pattern shots can be tough, how stuff gets handled around the edges of the frame becomes critical, and you have already got some helpful comments in that regard.
I think the negative space in the LLC is more of a distraction than the empty space in the URC. I would try some crops to minimize the negative space in the LLC (partly because it is so bright that it pulls my eye away from the lichen in the center.
And just to demonstrate to @Lon_Overacker that I try to be balanced in my white balance comments, I think this image is a little too cool in the grays (sorry Lon, I couldn’t resist 
).
I find the “blue” grays to be more of an issue than the overall level of saturation, which I think is appropriate for an abstract like this, especially if the rocks and lichen were wet at all. I think a cooler gray works to create some color contrast with the yellow, but subjectively for me this is little more blue than I would go for in my own work, although I would not take it back to a neutral gray.
