ORIGINAL:
REWORK:
Any comments welcome. I did a bit of color and exposure adjustments using luminosity and color masks. Does it look natural, especially the plants poking up into the sky?
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
Single frame, a7, 24-105@105mm, f/8, 1/750s, ISO200
Bonnie, the dead tree and the tall grasses show well here. The dark and cloudy sky adds nicely to the chilly winter day mood.
Bonnie, if you cropped this image to exclude the horizon, I would have guessed that this was one of the stark tree images done so well by @Antonio.Aleo
I don’t see any significant halos created by your masks, so technically I don’t have any problems in that regard. What bothers me a little is that while I love the shape and character of the dead tree, the top of the image (plants and sky both) are so bright that it pulls my eye away from the tree, despite my brain wanting to go to the tree. I’m not sure that you need to crop away the horizon to address my concern. I did a rework where I retained your composition, and added vignetting to the top two corners( to make those bright areas recede visually), and some dodging of the tree trunks to bring that area in the center forward a bit. here is what i would suggest for tweaks.
Excellent work Bonnie! You have taken an image of an every day subject and expressed how it looks to you. I might try to lift the darks in the lower two corner to show more of the linear quality of those bushes but not so much as to affect the overall mood. I might also give this a slightly warmer overall global cast but that’s a matter of taste.
A great subject captured and composed beautifully, Bonnie. Ed’s suggestion of darkening the upper corners also works well, but I liked this immediately as is. The darks surrounding the dead tree make this seem like a burial site - a very appropriate mood.
Bonnie, this is really great observation and seeing on this one! I like the original very much and I also do like @Ed_McGuirk suggested tweaks to the vignette. Beautiful work!
@Mark_Seaver, @Ed_McGuirk, @Igor_Doncov, @Ian_Wolfenden, and @Alan_Kreyger - thanks so much for the suggestions. I posted a rework incorporating your comments.
For the sky, I darkened it overall, added more vignette in the corners, and desaturated it so that they eye wouldn’t be drawn so much to the blue color. I brushed the vignette off the plants that poke up into the sky, which works better I think. They stand our more and give this a bit more of an uplifting feel.
In the lower corners, I brought back some of the midtones and lights to better show the branchwork of the dark bushes. I kept the darks pretty dark, as I’m thinking this needs that dark visual mass in the LRC to balance the dead tree. I dodged a bit on the tree to make it stand out more. For the original, I had lightened and cooled it so it would stand out more. I didn’t add more warmth, as Igor suggested, because I like the somber mood; the original was warmer.
So, thanks again - good suggestions all around.
