I’ve had my eye on this tree in my favorite local part for a while. I knew some fog would be necessary to execute what I was looking for and provide some separation between it and the trees. I took a number of different compositions of this tree and settled on starting with this one.
Specific Feedback Requested
I’m considering either dropping the contrast by lifting the blacks or cropping entirely the small set of branches coming in from the middle left side of the frame. I’m curious if others found it to be a bit of an eye grabber. I’m always interested in if colors tones and saturation seem to be up to par.
Finally, and most importantly, does it make you feel anything? Are you able to tell yourself a story based on the image? I’m curious what you see and feel.
Technical Details
David, I really like the composition here. It is very strong, with a solid tree on the right and a wonderful soft lead in from the left. It works quite nicely, I think.
I took the liberty of downloading it and pulling it into Affinity Photo to play around. I reduced the brightness through a curves adjustment–simply taking the center of the curve line and bringing it down some. That left it a bit too blue, so then took a slight adjustment to the white balance to warm it back up. That reduced the soft fog feel but also gave it a bit more life–in my view anyway,
The scene reminds me of treking through Forest Park here in Portland Oregon, trying to get some fog/tree scenes. I’ve had fun, but never pulled anything like this out, so kudos to you.
Cheers,
David
I love this image, David. I think the contrast and brightness is just right for this mood. I also think the color saturation is just right for the mood you’ve chosen here. The pale cool colors work so well with the faded warm hues. I think the strong bush on the left helps compensate for the draw that the tree has on the right, which is to say that cropping the bush off might make the composition less balanced. What does it make me feel? I feel as though there is something wonderful to be found if I walked into those woods. It beckons me. It invites me. Overall, this is a very uplifting image in my opinion.
@David_Bostock and @Igor_Doncov thank you so much for the comments on this image. I’m including another version where I have lifted the blacks a bit to create a little more cohesion between the bush on the left and the rest of its surroundings.
It is funny how critique and feedback work…I shared this with another group that I really respect as well and got almost the exact opposite feedback. Specifically that the tree on the left doesn’t feel included due to the difference in sharpness/focus, it feels cramped because both the trees on the right and left side are cut off, and the gap is too large between the two trees. Interesting how different people read a scene differently.
