I took this one just a few feet away from my last post. Again, focusing on the simplicity of the snow covered rocks in the water. This one I was attempting to include a bit more in the scene than the prior image and the slight ripples in the water seemed to be of interest.
Type of Critique Requested
- Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
- Conceptual: Feedback on the message and story conveyed by the image.
- Emotional: Feedback on the emotional impact and artistic value of the image.
- Technical: Feedback on the technical aspects of the image, such as exposure, color, focus and reproduction of colors and details, post-processing, and print quality.
Specific Feedback and Self-Critique
I was again drawn to the small mounds of snow resting on top of the rocks, this time the ripples in the water added some interest to the opposite side of the frame. Again, very simple, hard for me to tell if it is minimal or boring!
Technical Details
David, this has a nice, peaceful, relaxing quality to it. The B&W treatment is sensational. And you’ve nicely controlled the highlights in the snow. I like the edge framing at the top. It looks like you have good DOF front to back. I wouldn’t change a thing. Wonderful image.
David,
Wonderful intimate scene. Boring, of course not! Just a bit more than simple compared to your last image, but certainly engaging. And yes, agree with David, great b&w here. Admittedly, I first glanced at this on my phone early this morning. (not a good idea) and I was thinking the top lacked any detail… but was I pleasantly surprised when opening this up on the big monitor. Great detail and interst up top.
I also am really enjoying the ripples and molten texture inthe water. And again, b&w processing is excellent.
No nits, although I was thinking of shaving off just a tad from the bottom to remove the somewhat lighter,textured water on the left bottom edge and the other darker waves along the edge. We’re talking maybe 50-60pix? Yeah, that’s pretty nitty.
Well done!
Lon
I like this much better the your previous snow on rock post. The snow frame, snow detail, and water ripples are wonderful. Very nice B&W processing.
Hi David, this image has a lot going for it and I like it very much and it’s definitely NOT a boring image.
First off, your b&w conversion is great with nice pleasing tones throughout the image. I also like the texture of the water (especially to the right of the lower rock) and I like the placement of the two big rocks in the frame and how they form a nice strong diagonal “line” between them.
That said, I can’t help but feel that the (visual) balance in the image is off. Not enough white at the top and too much black at the bottom. I opened the image up in Photoshop to see if a crop would help, but in the end, in addition to a crop from the bottom I also tried adding some canvas to the top and filling it with content aware fill. To my eyes, this feels more balanced but you may think otherwise.
@David_Bostock @Lon_Overacker @Eva_McDermott @Tom_Nevesely thank you for taking a look at this one.
David - I did do a stack of 3 images to try to ensure the snow would be sharp. I was lazy though and instead of getting out my ND filters I was pushing the fstop to higher numbers than I normally would.
Lon, thanks for the comments. It is interesting, I’ve spent very little time processing black and white images but they seem to be coming out in a way that resonates a bit. Something for me to keep exploring for sure. I could see taking some off the bottom, I’ll consider it for sure.
Eva, thank you for the kind words!
Tom, I was really drawn to that section on the right! That was almost more important for me than the rock! Unfortunately the bank started to get quite dirty above where I cut it off. It’s interesting how well your version came out. I may have to consider that…I like both versions but yours is valid for sure.
