Autumn 2020 photo project, taken 10/30/20 in Weston Massachusetts
Another post from our record October snowfall this past year. This image was taken early that morning when the wind was strong and the snow had just started in earnest. The dusting of snow on this red Japanese Maple tree reminded me of powdered sugar sprinkled on a pastry
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 127mm, ISO 640 1/8 sec at f11
4 Likes
This is really nice, Ed. No suggestions here. Hope you had a nice hot cup o’ joe with this pastry.
Thanks Harley, in Boston we call it a wicked good cup of Dunkin… 
Ed, this image is just my cup of tea! There are delightful details to explore and the delicate snow covering the red foliage just makes the difference for me. I can feel the wintry atmosphere immediately.
Although the greens might bee seen as color contrast and a sign of transition contrasting the red leaves, I am drawn to reduce their saturation in order to let the reds stand alone. In my opinion, the cooler color cast of the background makes for enough contrast. But this is only my personal opinion of course. I appreciate your image a lot as presented.
Peter
1 Like
This is really beautiful, Ed. But here’s my take on it. I like this image much better when it is seen small. When I open it up to full monitor size , it loses something because it is out of focus. Well, of course it is out of focus, you shot it at 1/8th of a sec in a wind storm 
But I wonder what it would be like to pull further back on the clarity and go more abstract, highlighting the colour contrasts and shapes in a more impressionistic manner. Just a thought with no skin in the game whatsoever!
Beautiful shot, Ed. I’m thinking, if it’s available, I would like to give it just a liitle more room at the bottom so the blooms at the bottom right aren’t cut off. I played with it and boosted the brightness just a smidge and boosted red & yellow saturation about 5%.
I appreciate the 3 dimensionality of this composite. The branches open outward and forward like a cauliflower. I suppose it’s the snow that does this. Usually these type of images are structured to show off their patterns. I like the changes @Bill_Chambers offered in terms of brightness and color.
@Igor_Doncov @Peter_Richter @Kerry_Gordon @Bill_Chambers @Harley_Goldman
thank you all for taking the time to give me your comments.
Kerry I had not added any clarity to this, but taking it up to +15 clarity sharpens things up considerably, which helps. Bill Chambers, I like your suggested tweaks. It seems like recently I have consistently been getting comments on my fall foliage posts that I could go further with my saturation. I may have veered too conservative here, and could push it a bit further. I always worry about saturation and wet leaves, its easy to go off the rails quickly, but I like the small bump you gave it in your rework. This was taken at a cemetery, so if I showed any more room at the bottom, the headstones would be creeping into the shot, I wish Ihad more room here too. I wanted to show just enough of the trunk to get the 3D look that Igor mentioned.
Igor, some of that 3D look comes from this being early in the storm, and the snow had mostly fallen on the outer and upper branches, and not so much on the inner or lower ones, creating a difference in look. Later in the day after it had snowed for hours, the snow was so thick and heavy that everything was totally coated, as seen in my two prior posts.
Well, I thought Snowliage #2 was my favorite, but this one is right there too. I especially think the background snowing adds a fantastic effect to this. Well done on these Ed!
