It has been a decent fall with some good color out there. This is from a walk towards sunset with my wife. I stopped because this section of trees had some good color but no light at first. I was putting the camera away because I watched the sun dip below the clouds only to look up with my backpack on and wonderful light filled the scene. Luckily, my tripod hadn’t moved! I quickly put it all back and snapped this image.
The light is gorgeous, Kyle. The red leaves in the lower half create a somewhat 50-50 composition to me. If it were mine, I woul focus on a tighter crop around the lower half of the image. The color variation there is gorgeous.
I took images focused more on the lower areas I can share tonight when I get back to my computer! I love the reds in there as well. The contrast between the chaotic lower half and upper parts of the trees really interested me as well which is why I gravitated towards the vertical I took.
I agree that the image has too much of a 50/50 split to it. I usually find @Adhika_Lie instincts to be very good, but in this case I’m of a different opinion than Adhika. For my taste, I think the sweet light in the top half of the image is the most appealing aspect of the scene. The color variation in the bottom half is nice, but for me its the light in the top that I like. The bottom half might work well too as a standalone image, but it’s hard to get rid of that sweet light. I think this really is two images, each with their own potential.
Here is a crop that I might consider to showcase the top.
Always difficult to balance out a composition and I can certainly see where the tension comes in. I was struggling in the field to quickly compose a balance left to right with those without introducing distractions just outside of the frame. I also had to shift myself left and right to figure out the background and getting and even distribution of sky coming through behind!
