The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
Going through my shots from last year and this one is from when I spent a week on Vinal Haven, an island town in Maine. One day my best friend and I took a walk on a trail not far from where we were staying and when I saw this Amanita, we both stopped in our tracks. Both mycophiles, we know our shrooms and just marveled at this little beauty. It’s probably an Amanita Muscaria, and not fully fruited, but close.
Specific Feedback
It’s kind of dark down here on the forest floor, plus it was cloudy and would sprinkle a little while we were out, so I didn’t want it to be to too illuminated, but the deep color of the mushroom was so pronounced, that I couldn’t back off that too much. OK?
Technical Details
Handheld, but I think I put this on something to steady it, just can’t remember what.
Lr for the crop and some masking and vignetting to keep the mushroom the center of attention. Used some wb adjustment, texture, denoise and sharpening with one distraction removed.
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
Vision and Purpose:
Conceptual:
Emotional Impact and Mood:
Composition:
Balance and Visual Weight:
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Color:
Lighting:
Processing:
Technical:
Kris, this is an excellent take on this very difficult spot with the overall focusing perspective. You came away with a very fine image here. The all around exposure works fine for my tastes…
Kris, I certainly like the vibrant colours of the mushroom juxtaposed against the dark rhs rock and in - focus green moss. I do find the out of focus background a bit of a problem, though. I feel it is a bit bright (particularly the highlights) and could be blurred quite a lot more.
A nice find.
Wow, what a nice mushroom with all of its “toxic” charm. Vibrant colors are nice and you did well with the BG where I feel that it contributes to the environmental presentation of the mushroom. You may want to darken the BG slightly to see whether it strengthens the comp. …Jim
Kris: Looks pretty darn good to me in comp and exposure. Having close to zero knowledge of mushrooms, is the red/orange a warning much like it is with butterflies? Perhaps not tasty but certainly photogenic. Great find and a fine capture. >=))>
Wonderful capture!! For me, the BG gets a little boring toward the left – too much of the same thing. Maybe add a little more apparent DOF with some blur, if it can be made to look good, or a crop, or a burn. The mushroom is fabulous!!
Thanks @Paul_Breitkreuz, @Dennis_Plank, @Rob_Sykes, @Bill_Fach, @Jim_Zablotny & @Diane_Miller - I may go back and tinker a bit, but probably will leave it be. Part of my exhaustion with photography is the nearly endless time spent processing, even with knowing my software quite well and having a routine of sorts. So I think backing off some of that will be beneficial to me and keep my enthusiasm, if not at a boil, at least at a simmer.
Oh and yes, it is a toxic one, but probably won’t kill you as others in the Amanita family will most definitely do. One of the interesting things about mushrooms is the way a common type changes from continent to continent. In Europe, Amanita muscaria is thought to have been used by Vikings to achieve their beserker state for battle. That’s because the ratio of hallucinogenic properties to actual poison is pretty high and using it judiciously is reasonably safe. Chemical analysis of the North American version however, shows the proportions to be the reverse, with the toxic properties being much higher in proportion to the “fun” stuff. Leaving them alone on both continents is a good idea, but more so over here.
Kris: I hear you on the processing part. I grew up in photography in the pre-digital era of slides. My favorite film was Velvia which was very unforgiving but spectacular when you got it right. I find the challenge and joy of the capture much more gratifying than the time at the computer. I cherish my time behind the viewfinder much more than my time in front of a screen. As you probably know I was very late coming to stacking but I must admit that some of the new features in Lightroom and DxO have allowed me to resurrect some older images and that is exciting.
Thanks for the info on the mushrooms. I’ll be sure to limit my consumption to those I get out of a jar or can.
Same here, shot film for 20 years before buying a digital camera. At first, post processing was awful because I had not discovered Lightroom yet, but then late in 2009 I did and haven’t looked back. For a very long time it was exciting and interesting to play with all the options and about 5 years ago I added Photoshop and took a lot of time to learn it as well as the TK plug ins. However, now I just find the prospect of editing enervating. I know I’m the one in control and can put the brakes on anytime, but it still becomes a chore to sort, evaluate and then work on my batch of photos. This leads to my thought that I’m taking too many images in the field. Not really spray and pray exactly, but with the onset of 1s and 0s, I got really experimental, trying stuff that I knew wouldn’t work out. Over time I’ve gotten better at walking away from something I know I won’t use, but I need to be more strict and judge more critically. Maybe that will be my M.O. going forward - to walk away with higher frequency, and possibly have images I’m more excited by when I get home.
Kris: Digital does make me much more profligate with captures than I ever considered with film. Storage is cheap and one can experiment with all kinds of tiny variations. What I find most taxing and tedious is trying to analyze all the shots I took. I’ll occasionally take 100+ images of a subject because of wind, changing light, etc and then end up letting them ferment on the hard drive. Maybe I should pretend I have a 36 shot roll of film. Oh well, it is a nice problem to have. >=))>
The frame limitation is quite fun to do, especially if you dial back as many of the digital extras as you can. I called it the Digital Film Challenge, and even created a Custom Mode on my camera that helps with the goal of shooting digital as if it was film. Other than doing big bracketing sessions, maybe that’s the way for me to shoot at least for a while. The onslaught of a big day’s worth of images just makes me tired.
Kris, this is a beautiful Amanita, showing off its colors and structure very well. Being down in the forest lets its colors saturate along with the greens of the moss. I was introduced to this Aminita on a ranger led hike where the one he pointed out next to the trail had a perfectly chipmunk shaped bite missing from the cap!!!
