I made this image on 6/29 during my latest photo outing in my local forest. The light was fabulous, with thinning clouds creating diffuse, variable light. As I photographed the scene, I found myself feeling surrounded by peace and quiet, and almost losing myself in the forest. I was experiencing most excellent forest bathing, to borrow the Japanese concept of “shinrin yoku”. Even if I hadn’t made this photo, the experience was worth the steep hike to this spot.
Specific Feedback Requested
Suggested improvements to enhance the feeling on peace, quiet, vitality and “shinrin yoku”.
Technical Details
Sony a7RIV, 24-105 f/4 at 55mm. f/11, 1/4 sec, ISO 800. Not a panorama. Processed in LR with local adjustments via Masking, cleanup in Photoshop
I find it hard to actuallly understand what to do in post-processing to enhance the feelings you list by just looking at the image. So instead I downloaded your image and played around changing contrast, vibrance, luminosity of the sky shining through in the BG and a lot of other things without being able to make it any better than your version. So, it seems that you have done a great job!
I find forest scenes to be some of the most difficult to photograph.
It’s almost like you need a physical print on the wall, with a recording playing the sounds you heard, some kind of smell-o-vision to replicate the smells and then there! THAT’S what I experienced!
That being said I like it.
Some nitpicky stuff:
The tree way up on the top right seems out of place somehow. Everything else is bright green and this one tree is darker. Again, nitpicky.
If you’re going for the natural edit that’s really about it. If you want more drama, brightening the moss and leaves and darkening other parts of the image (just a bit!) Would get you there.
I think you’ve done a great job making sense out of this forest scene. You’ve created structure for the image yet it’s subtle, thus leaving the forest to show it’s character of lines and shapes going every which way. I think you could crop off the row of green ferns along the very bottom. They stand out a bit due to their saturation and I think it draws you away from the upper limbs. Great job.
This is absolutely lovely and I agree with Igor that you’ve made good “sense” out of the usual forest chaos. It conveys vitality to me because of the vibrant greens and strong verticals of the trees. I can imagine that it was very peaceful and quiet being there, but the vertical orientation, strong verticals of the trees, and the busy texture rather negate that feeling for me. Nonetheless, it’s a super image.
I have a similar comment - same theme - you’ve managed to capture some “order from chaos.” Image has good structure with the main, darker branches. Also, I think everything is well connected. What I mean by that is even the lower, curved branch pointing down, connects the upper tree structure with the forest floor and ferns.
As others have mentioned, and I agree, photographing in a forest is one of the most difficult places; and of all the forests, the rain forest places are the most difficult .
Color, sat, contrast all looks good. No nits or suggestions.
Thanks for your input. I’ve brightened the tree on the left to better match the foliage of the rest of the image. I’m playing around with local adjustments to add the “drama” you suggest.
One thing I noticed that might help is that the two branches coming from the right middle kind of pull my attention away from the main tree. I also wonder if that dark bark could be less dark although maybe that’s of benefit. I also think if you could somehow add some contrast in between each of the tree trunks, it might help a tad bit (some burning).
Lovely image.
