The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
When Sacramento hit triple digit temperatures last weekend, I was fortunate that I was able to get out of town to make the 6-hour drive to the redwoods on the northern California coast and get some beautiful foggy conditions. I’ve been skunked at this location more times than I can count!
Specific Feedback
Struggling with this image- I want to like it but the composition feels too heavy on the left. Maybe I should have left myself more room to play with there? I played around with a virtual copy in LR and flipped it horizontally so the gesture of the branch was reaching to the right, which I like better, but curious to see what your feedback is!
Technical Details
ISO 640, 70mm, f/13, 1/15 second. I bumped up the ISO slightly because of a light breeze and low light conditions, denoised in LR.
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
What a peaceful, serene setting, and captured very well. A slight crop might get rid of the dark lower area, as well as a bit of that left trunk that’s a little heavy.
Sweet!
I liked the idea of flipping this, Beth. I downloaded your image and played with it a bit in PS, though in many ways I think the local adjustment brush in LR would have been easier. using the original orientation for reference, I cropped a little off the right and bottom because I felt that gray distant trunk on the right was a non-entity in visual weight and I wanted to emphasize the tree just inside the right edge. I brushed a little more light on that trunk and increased the contrast a bit to make it compete with the large trunk on the left. Then I brightened the foliage in that corner to help it compete a little bit more with the star of the show. Finally, I flipped the image horizontally the way you mentioned. I’m not sure this gets you closer to where you wanted this image, but it’s one approach to take or leave as you wish.
Dennis, the edits you made are great; thank you so much! I really appreciate your thoughtful suggestions! Once I flipped the image, I realized how crooked the trees were so I made a slight rotation in LR in addition to the edits you mentioned. This was hugely helpful; thank you!
Your re-worked image is really splendid. Now the image is much lighter as you probably wished and then leaves and flowers of the rhododendron are near and more enjoyable especially in the enlarged photo. Now I can admire all the beauty of the delicate play of gentle lights and soft shades. Drops of lights seem to come down on the rhododendron like rain. Beautiful photo Beth.
Beth, this image is just glorious! I’ll be the odd one out as I prefer the “as-shot” composition more than the flipped one. It feels better balanced with a more intuitive flow. I do, however, find your reprocessed version to be an improvement. We’ll be at Redwood NP in a couple weeks and though I know we’ll miss the rhododendron bloom, I’m still excited to visit this magical landscape. Thanks for whetting my appetite with this lovely image!
This image has a wonderful atmosphere, Beth!! I really love it as it is!
I personally don’t have a problem with the orientation and don’t have the urge to flip it horizontally or crop it. To me, the broad trunk on the left gives a clear clue that we are in a redwood forest, and I agree with @Bret_Edge that the balance is fine. The horizontal flip creates a much more dynamical composition, true, but I feel that detracts from the quiet atmosphere in the original.
Instead, I edited the image only slightly, so that it became a bit less ‘heavy’ in the darks and lighter in the misty parts, which makes the scene more ethereal. I think this suits the misty mood a bit better. What do you think?
I like that edit, too, Gerard, thank you! If I went that route, I would probably clone out the dark clumps of foliage in the bottom left, but I like that edit too very much!
This is great. I was there last week and really struggled with lighting I am not used to. Montana’s Big Sky’s offer quite a bit more light! I don’t mind the large tree on the left. I think you’ve either got to do it like that or have quite a bit of space, similar to what you have on the right. I like it!
It’s interesting that the image works well flipped left-to-right. Many years ago, I’d read that looking at the mirror image of a painting (or photo) is a way to check the composition. I remember a rather stark landscape in a local cafe all those years ago that looked better in the mirror than it did irl, which intrigued me to no end. It’s a trick I used to use on my own images, but had somewhat forgotten about. Thanks for the great composition reminder, and for this beautiful image of the redwood forests in fog. I like it both ways around, but with your edits and the slight crop.
Denise, it’s interesting, right? I had read (but cannot recall where) that in our western society, where we read from left to right, that images are more pleasing to our eye when the subject gestures from left to right in the frame. In looking through my image library, I definitely find that to be true.
