REWORK (to incorporate everyone’s comments):
ORIGINAL:
A gentle breeze riffled the surface of a nearby wetland earlier this spring. The light on the ripples and the distorted reflections caught my eye.
Any comments welcome. As one of my local photo peeps always asks - Is there enough “there” there?
Is this a composite: No
a7r3, 279mm, 1/400s, f/11, ISO 1000
Oh this reminds me of one I did almost exactly like this. My plants were messier though. Yours are nice and ordered. The dark treatment works, but I think the vignette is a bit strong. The grass really stands out and I love that you can see down into the water as well. Square crop works well here as the subject is so subtle against a strong background. Super.
I really like the centered composition and the fantastic contrast on the ripples of the water. I also like how the green of the reeds just pop. I feel that the bottom of the image is just slightly too dark and I would experiment with bringing that up just a little bit.
Hi Bonnie, the centered subject and square crop work extremely well here. There truly is enough there. I really like how the reeds pop against the water background. I agree with the others that some lightening on the bottom would balance it out. Perhaps a gradient mask on the bottom to smoothly bring up the shadows. Just a thought.
I had several looks at this image because my initial impression didn’t show me why you liked this so much. The dark area at the bottom initially seems out of place but that turned out due to the NPN’s black background. Once I downloaded it and put a grey frame around it the dark area became great negative space that adds much to the image. Uploading an image with the frame.
It also gave me an idea for the upper part. What if the higher values of the ripples were diminished a bit? That would make the ripples more as a tonal background to the blades of grass and the grass would stand out more.
Just throwing out some ideas.
Thanks, @Kris_Smith, @Tom_Nevesely, @David_Bostock, and @Igor_Doncov for your thoughts. You all make very good points, which I tried to incorporate into a rework. I’ll say I fussed a lot to incorporate your suggestions while keeping the look I wanted. Don’t know if I succeeded, but I’m giving up for the moment - ha.
This is a nice picture.
I love the bold composition, I also second @Igor_Doncov suggestion regarding the frame.
Something between those to version would be fantastic in my opinion.
Bonnie, this is a great “quiet water contemplation” view, especially the reworked version where the reduced contrast adds nicely to the sense of calm. If you feel like continuing to work on this you might try burning-in the darker tones around the plant and in the bottom quarter. One thing that I believe in abstracts or semi-abstracts like this is that roughly even contrast throughout keeps the viewer’s eyes roaming the entire frame. I’d hang this and contemplate whenever some calming was needed.
Thanks, @joaoquintela and @Mark_Seaver for your ideas.
I wasn’t thinking of this as an abstract, but that is a good thought. It really is more like an abstract. I’ll give your suggestion a try.
