Autumn 2020 photo project - taken 10/30 20 in Weston Massachusetts
This image is a followup to my prior post “On The Beech” taken on 10/28/20
My followup image was taken 2 days later than the earlier post, from the same beech tree. On 10/30/20 eastern Massachusetts had a record 5 inches of snow, our first snowfall in October since 2011. And I got lucky. There were still a fair number of trees around with autumn color remaining , and the snow was wet enough to stick to the leaves. I love to shoot images with the story of seasonal transitions, so snow and autumn foliage, or “Snowliage” is a rare treat to photograph. Needless to say, the next few posts in this chronological series will feature Snowliage
Specific Feedback Requested
any critique or comments are welcome
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
Canon 5D MKIV, Canon 70-200mm f4 lens at 200mm. ISO 640, 1/13 sec at f11
I did not critique “On The Beech” (I like the title is was -9 here yesterday), but did visit the image and critique thread. I appreciated the deeper discussion about the critique process and the value in not every image is a “wall hanger”.
Regarding this image:
The empty URC is the biggest issue for me. I prefer the left two thirds of this image. It looks like it was made on a bright overcast day? The texture and colors are nice, but I think more contrast and shadow might have added some depth. This is definitely a nice example of “snowliage”.
Snowliage - an apt description! The roughly textured snow on the warm leaves is lovely. I’m with Alan on the URC; it feels odd because the other three corners are filled with the lovely texture. The OOF background also feels odd, but I’m not sure why. I think because the light doesn’t look like it matches the rest of the frame. Maybe cooling the OOF areas to make them recede more might work.
Lovely intimate Ed. I enjoy the detail of the snow and the subtle fall color. I found @Bonnie_Lampley’s comment interesting. To my eye, I didn’t mind that deep background OOF; it seems to exaggerate the stars of the show nicely. I do think if those closer leaves, like in the lower left, were in focus too it would be a slight improvement (tiny nit, though).
I love the way this one says winter is here and fall is on its way out. I cropped this a bit, cloned out the remaining leaf and boosted the vibrance a bit.
This shot was much harder to take than it might look. The wind was blowing hard, since it was still snowing. I think wind creates some of the leaf softness in the LLC mentioned by John, adding some extra clarity there can help a bit. I didn’t want to push the ISO any higher for IQ reasons.
This tree was big, and had a lot of three dimension-ality to it as well. It was hard to avoid the gaps (and the background peeking through in spots). Bonnie, I think darkening and cooling the gaps will help, thanks for the suggestion. And Harley, I like your crop a lot, thanks for the idea, it helps mitigate the issue. I also agree with you that I could get away with a bit more saturation here. Just to provide some context, here is a wider shot of this tree, to show how hard it was to find a flatter area without gaps in the leaves, due to it’s layers of branches and 3D layout of leaves. Again, I know this is not an “epic shot”, but I think it has an interesting story to it. However the tweaks suggested here are helpful and add some value.
Context Image (the posted leaf image is from a different closeup shot, this is a wider view)
I really love the close up of the leaves and snow, very beautiful! And that’s neat seeing the tree you had to work with! That would be hard! Thanks for sharing what you did with it, that’s very inspiring!
