As a complete novice to landscape photography, I thought I’d give it a try when I saw this scene in Korea. I wanted the reeds to be the main subject, and this was what I thought was the best angle to capture them at in the evening sunlight.
Type of Critique Requested
Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
Technical: Feedback on the technical aspects of the image, such as exposure, color, focus and reproduction of colors and details, post-processing, and print quality.
Specific Feedback and Self-Critique
My first consideration was composition. What are your thoughts on this? Then I tried to capture the different tones/luminosity, which looked interesting. I have Photoshop CS6, so I used the TK Basic V6 panel to play around with the differently-lit sections of the shot. I thought that this was particularly necessary with the upper half of the picture, and I made several TK selections and adjustments to curves or shadows before I was fairly happy with the results. But the landscape experts here will see things I didn’t see, and know the solutions, so please cut to the chase!
Technical Details
D500 + 24-120 f 4 (@38mm) 1/125 f8 ISO 200 hand-held
Hello Mike. First, the scene has a lovely quiet feeling to it, very pastoral, yet with energy in the golden reeds. You saw a nice scene here. It’s just not one that fits the 35mm ratio very well. Thus, my first thought is to eliminate the sky altogether in a crop. Our eye goes to the brightest area of the frame, and in this case you don’t want us going up there. By cropping below the ridge line, you take care of that white sky issue. The next area I would look at is the lighter slope on the left, perhaps burning that in just a tiny bit to not have the eye pulled there. Whatever other edits you did with TK panels, it works! I love how the stand of reeds glows.
Hi Mike, wow, those reeds are awesome. I agree with @brenda_tharp that the sky kinda pulls my eye away from the reeds. Since they are the primary subject, I can see a fairly major crop to remove the sky and sky reflection and then in from the left to bring the reeds a bit more lower center prominent.
Color, sharpness, processing all look like your typical excellent work, sir. Well seen.
What a great scene! The colour and texture of the reeds is really nice and I also love the details in the trees above them. As Brenda and David have already pointed out, the bright sky does pull my eye off of the great looking reeds. Apart from re-shooting this in better conditions (when there isn’t as great contrast between the sky and the land) the suggested crop could be beneficial.
The contrast between the reeds and the forest behind is really nice, and a great anchor for this image. That’s definitely where my eye wants to go. I very much agree with the others that the sky (and its water reflection) is more of a distraction than a benefit to the overall scene, and I would suggest the same crop. I do like the contrast between the bare sunlight trees and the green sunlight forest as a replication of pattern however, and wonder if you could apply a 16 x 9 ratio crop to preserve that while eliminating the sky/water? Thanks for sharing, and pleasde keep making imaghes and sharing them!
Don’t be too hard on yourself - this is an excellent landscape and composition. Yes, the reeds clearly are the main subject and I think you did a great job balancing all the elements.
I’m gonna play devil’s advocate here and suggest that the sky works for me, and here’s why. It’s balanced by it’s reflection in the water. Also you’ve clearly not included more sky - for the reason most folks don’t like it there in the first place - it’s bright, blank and not adding much, if not adding anything. But IMHO, the amount included is the right amount to let the mountain top breath and to have it complimented by it’s reflection. When you crop - now there’s a blank, empty bright space at the bottom…
Yeah, I can’t disagree that the sky is not a great asset, but on balance I quite like this as presented. There may be tweaks you could do, but these boil down to personal preference. I could see punching up the dehaze/clarity in ACR/LR and selectively apply to the bg hill and trees, boost the vibrance, or drop the brighness values in said sky, but again, photographer’s choice. This really isn’t a scene though that doesn’t require more color or saturation .
Thanks very much @brenda_tharp@jefflafrenierre@Tom_Nevesely@David_Bostock and @Lon_Overacker. This kind of advice is just what I was hoping for. @Lon_Overacker - you read my mind about the sky acting as a frame for the mountain. Like you, I didn’t like the quality of the sky’s light and have tried to reduce its brightness. But I couldn’t do this much as artifacts started to appear when I used PS Brightness. Anyway, I’ve replaced the original above with this modified version.
However, I do agree with the consensus for cropping out the sky completely, so have done that and posted the rework above. @jefflafrenierre I went for the 16 X 9 ratio and like this, though I then cropped a bit off the left as I also liked @David_Bostock’s suggestion for altering the reeds’ placement a little. The only quibble left in my mind is that the reflection of the bare sunlit trees on the left is now a bit near the border at the bottom. You can’t win them all, and thanks again for the great advice in your critiques!
