Simplicity

Image Critiques Landscape Critiques
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Critique Style Requested: Standard

The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.

Description

Simplicity

I captured this image in Yellowstone on January 1st. There are always many areas where springs flow out of the earth. The water is usually covered with heavy snow in the middle of winter. This year is different though, in a couple of ways. First, there is still a lot of groundwater left over from the snowy Winter and wet Spring of 2022/2023. Second, there is very little snow in the Lamar Valley to cover up any ice that forms. The result is an abundance of places where springs are slowly building up ice in layers. In places the ice is covered in a thin layer of liquid water, providing some compelling scenes for a photographer that appreciates simplicity. Just the act of being there allowed a feeling of contentment and simplicity to flow through me.

Speaking of simplicity, my wish for you is that you might find ways to increase simplicity in your life. Simplicity is a way to reduce clutter in our lives. Our minds, our hearts and our homes can become cluttered by too much stuff. Just like in a photograph, too much of anything makes it difficult to focus. May you find ways to declutter your lives and calm places to spend your time.

Specific Feedback

Do you agree with the elements I removed either by cropping or with the healing tool. Is it too dark, or should I have kept the original exposure? It certainly was more bright out than the finished image shows.

Technical Details

I rented a Nikon Z8 and the Z800mm f/6.3 for this.
ISO 200, f/9.0, 1/1000 sec
I changed the exposure, contrast, highlights and shadows. I removed a few distracting elements and added a vignette. I’ve included another unprocessed image to show what all I did.

1 Like
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WOW!!! What a wonderful image and accompanying sentiment! It’s wonderful to see the starting point – you did a fantastic job of processing. The shading on the ice is wonderful, as is the sharpness of the capture. The reflection is so perfectly imperfect.

What is that quote about painters decide what to add and photographers have to figure out what to remove…

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I don’t agree with that decision. I think now it is too simple. The problem in my opinion is that the negative space is too uniform in tonality. Even though I’m not a fan of out of focus I do find the composition varied and richer. My 2 cents.

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Thanks for chiming in Igor! I see your point about the tonality. It’s just such a pleasant shade of blue, perhaps I got stuck on that! I’ll play around with it some more. What I really wanted to do was get right up close with my macro lens, but that would have disturbed the ice and ruined the scene for others.

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Lovely image; I agree with @Igor_Doncov, I think the crop with just the one branch in is too simple, I am wondering about leaving in the two nearest bits in front of the branch? The branches at the bottom edge are too out of focus to keep, I think, as unfocused foregrounds are hard to get away with. I also think this has potential as a B&W image, bit more simplicity.

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I can see the value in that. In hindsight, I definitely should have switched lenses or possibly stacked various focus points. It was a strange set up because I had to kneel on the far shoulder of the road at the edge of an embankment and shoot across the road because that particular formation was too close for the minimum focus distance on that big ol’ 800mm lens.

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Pretty cool Paul. I love the details in the crystals. I like in isolation, although I might crop a tad tighter. (That’s just personal preference though.)