This is an image captured earlier this month hiking at the Black Canyon. As we hiked back to our car, I had a few brief moments to stop and photograph the backlit grasses and brush as the sun set down the canyon. It was a bit of a challenge to get the foliage pin sharp as the light dimmed and I set up my long lens. But, I like the texture the wind creates…at least that’s what I’m going with.
Composition, processing. Really any is appreciated.
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
Fuji X-T2 w/ 100-400 @ 323mm, F/8, 0.4s
Initial exposure and clarity adjustment in Capture 1 and then moved to PS to add midtone contrast and dodge/burn with luminosity masks. Wrapped it up to with a slight Orton and vignette.
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Hey Adam! Great image here. I love the textures and the patterning in the background - the path of soft brush through the bigger orange bushes/trees. I also like the simple composition with the balanced position of the bigger tree relative to the smaller tree.
If it were me, the main thing I would try to do is tweak the colors a bit. I think the greens look a little too warm and maybe just a bit oversaturated relative to the rest of the scene. I think if you cooled them off a bit, made them a little more neutral, you might strike a more harmonious balance with the oranges and cool shadows.
Course, I really struggle with color and especially with greens, so take that with a big fat grain of salt. Would love to hear what others think, but it looks like you’ve got a really good thing going with this image.
I like the contrasting elements in this scene - the two green juniper (?) trees pull my eye into the scene and provide a nice juxtaposition for the rest of the scene. I also like the contrast in size between the two trees.
One minor nit is that I find the green tree at the top is a bit of a distraction. I would recommend a slight crop to remove that tree at the top edge of the frame.
Thanks all. Here’s a re-edit with some tweaks based on your recommendations. I appreciate the input. I did a quick content aware fill of the green area at the top edge. I’m not totally satisfied with the result, but I agree that it was distracting. As for the green, I made a selection based on color in PS and made a hue/saturation adjustment to cool it down–I weighted this adjustment to the green channel shadows > highlights since the highlights were indeed warmer in real life.
Adam, I like the subject matter, the composition, and the textures in this image. This is a great example of telephoto extraction to create an intimate scene. The spatial arrangement of everything works really well, the sage and orange oaks(?) are nicely distributed across the image. I agree with removing the green tree at the top.
As you know, the processing of color is very much a subjective and personal matter. In the original image, I think the shadows in the oaks(?) are too magenta. I actually the prefer the warmer greens of the pines in the original over the rework. My own personal taste for this image would be to keep it warmer overall, and reduce magenta in the shadows. I also think a stronger vignette would help focus more attention on the center of the image. Here is a rework reflecting my thoughts.
