Postcard Perfect?

Image Critiques Landscape Critiques
1

_DSC5225-1-PohonoWest.jpg
_DSC5225-1-PohonoWest.jpg1500×1000 2.52 MB

Critique Style Requested: Initial Reaction

Please share your immediate response to the image before reading the photographer’s intent (obscured text below) or other comments. The photographer seeks a genuinely unbiased first impression.

Questions to guide your feedback

Is it too postcard perfect?

Other Information

Please leave your feedback before viewing the blurred information below, once you have replied, click to reveal the text and see if your assessment aligns with the photographer. Remember, this if for their benefit to learn what your unbiased reaction is.

Image Description

The Merced River and autumn foliage among the dogwoods that line the river. Sometimes my eye sees something that I am not sure of. I like the colors, I think it is perfectly exposed, but it seems to perfect, that it seems off the mark somehow.

Technical Details

Nikon D850, 50 mm f/1.8 MF lens, at f11 1/2 sec for the foliage, and a second exposure of f11 1/8 sec for the sky that was exposure blended in, bot at ISO 31. I was using the lowest ISO setting that the camera had in an attempt to smooth out the water of a previous scene and I had not readjusted the ISO.

Specific Feedback

Does it look fake in any way? Is it flat? Does anything hold interest?

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:
  • Depth and Dimension:
  • Color:
  • Lighting:
  • Processing:
  • Technical:
2

For me it isn’t perfect in the sense that it is a tripod hole scene. The arrangement of the rocks and relative unbalanced backdrop with the sky only visible in one half, looks to me like a more distinctive view that engaged you as a hiker and a photographer. It isn’t a view of the over-photographed Merced that I’ve seen before. I find the colors and luminosity a bit flat here in the sense that the highlights or possibly midtones could use a lift. The colors in the trees look especially homogenous to me and might benefit from some separation or lifting of luminosity to give them some sparkle.

3

Youssef,

My initial reaction is a nice scene, great colour but the foreground and tree line left of centre is messy and a bit distracting.

Cheers.

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