The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
I arrived to the this like initially in mid noun, the lake was overflowed with people, and I didn’t believe I was going to find a decent composition here, however during a drive back from a photography session in a location near by we suddenly saw this post sunset ambient light glowing on top of the mountains with the fog immediately we stopped the car and started running hoping to get make it before the light disappears.
For me this is a true moment showing how volatile the weather can be in those kind of location since we left the previous spot due to extreme rainfall and found this peaceful scenery in a near by lake.
Technical Details
NIKON Z 7II NIKKOR Z 24-70mm f/4 S 29.5mm ƒ/11.0 60s ISO 100
Good eye and job getting there on time. The mist layer is perfectly positioned on the slopes, leaving the background mountains clear. The patch of ? crud? on the surface on the left is unfortunate as my eyes keep going there. I also wonder if a touch of micro contrast (clarity) could be useful to bring up the texture in the far mountains just a bit. They would stand out and make the misty foreground more of a contrasting element. I wonder about the reflection, too, since it’s so light. They should always be darker than what they reflect. Nice catch and I’m glad you stopped especially since your initial location was unworkable.
Hey Idan, I think you are pretty close with this one. @Kris_Smith brings up some really good points to consider. The other think could help here is some color work. There are two things that stand out to me. The first is that your sky and land has a really nice cool tone to it (with the obvious warmth in the highlights) but the water is a bit warm and dingy. I wonder if playing with the color balance of the water separate from the land could lead to a bit more cohesive look. The other thing, same idea, is the mist, particularly below the mountains, has taken on a really warm tone to it that looks a little dirty (almost like smog in a city) and I’m wondering if you can cool that and neutralize it. Essentially trying to make everything cool EXCEPT for the nice highlights on the peaks.
This is a beautiful image with some really nice soft light and a great atmosphere! You’ve been given some great suggestions and I for one would be interested to see the results of them should you choose to experiment with them. One other thing to consider in my opinion would a be a slight crop from the left side. As it is now the main mountain range is just off of center to the right and that is giving me a bit of an uneasy feeling. Centering it more in the frame could help a bit with the balance of the image.
Good of you to get the car pulled over for a last minute dash with your tripod over the shoulder. Your efforts landed you a nice scene with very good atmosphere. As others have already noted, there is a brown cast over much of the foreground reflection which I don’t see in the background from the water up. The background has a nice blue tone with warmth in the peaks but that is somehow missing entirely in the reflection. I downloaded this for a quick play at it. This is a tough image for me but I have two takes after a few tweaks in LR. Please take these with a grain of salt. The first has a slight crop from the left side and the second has a major crop to focus more on the distant mountains since the foreground color cast is so hard to remove.
