A recent storm brought a considerable amount of snow to the mountains located less than an hour outside San Diego. This is a very rare occurrence in this part of the country and I knew I had to capture it. When I heard how much snow was expected I knew I wanted to photograph my favorite tree covered in a fresh blanket of snow as the sun rose over the hills. I knew that snowshoes would be required for the trek and most likely I’d have the whole place to myself (very few people in SD have snowshoes), which I did.
It was very cold the morning I took this image and I wanted to convey that when I processed it by keeping the shadows a little cooler. I also wanted to showcase the soft light from the sunrise sweeping across the scene.
Thanks in advance, my first post in NPN! Looking forward to learning from the great artists in this network.
What technical feedback would you like if any?
Any and all. Does the crop work? Any feedback is welcome.
What artistic feedback would you like if any?
Is the image to warm? Should I have darkened the sky more? Feedback is welcome.
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
Single exposure. Sony a7Riii, Sony 70-300mm at 70mm, ISO 100, f11, 1/100 sec.
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Welcome to NPN! A wonderful first post. To receive and capture a scene like this that includes SNOW in SoCal? Congrats for going out to get this!
I think both the crop and processing are excellent. What you’ve presented in terms of the crop and framing works very well - just hard to really judge given we don’t know what you cropped from… ;-)… But for certain, I like that you’ve given plenty of space for details in the wind-blown slope.
The color balance I think is appropriate for the time of day and lower angled light. And the sky I think appropriate too.
If I had a wish, it would be that the tree top on the left wasn’t present. But that’s very minor and at least it’s included and not cut off.
Thanks Lon! Learning already from this first post and response, this is the full image no cropping. I was thinking of cropping in to make the tree a little “bigger” in the frame but then I would have really been bother by the other tree top on the left like you mentioned.
Thanks again for looking and the feedback!
Welcome aboard, Andrew and a fine first post, too. I see what Lon is saying about the left tree, but I think it works quite well as presented. As a completely different presentation, I would consider a B&W conversion with a big boost to contrast. I played with it a bit in PS and I like the results. This is a real quick and dirty conversion. I like both versions, they are just quite different in mood and feeling. To me, the B&W renders a much more stark and isolated feel to it.
Welcome to NPN, Andrew. This is a beautiful first post. You have already gotten some wonderful thoughts from @Lon_Overacker and @Harley_Goldman and I would have to second their ideas. I look forward to more of your images and hope that you participate and comment on others.
Thank you @Harley_Goldman . Funny, BW is my first love so this one will be processed in BW for sure. I just really liked the play with the cool and warm tones in the color version and processed that one first.
Thanks again.
Welcome to NPN, this is a very appealing first post. I would be happy to send San Diego the 8 inches of snow that we got in Massachusetts last week if you are interested…
I like seeing this image in color. I think you did a great job processing the color and white balance. The highlights and sunlit areas have a nice warm glow, but you have maintained a nice color contrast with the blues in the shadow areas. I think you absolutely nailed the color of those shadows.
I am okay with the smaller tree, it doesn’t bother me. If you wanted to place more emphasis on the larger tree, I might consider a slight crop from the top edge of the frame, which would make the trees appear larger. But overall this is a very pleasing image, nicely done.
Thank you very much @Ed_McGuirk! I’d love to have your snow for a couple days… Color balance/harmony is an area I’ve been working hard on the last couple of months, glad to hear it’s paying off.
I’m so happy I’ve decided to join this network, the feedback is absolutely amazing.
Welcome! I’ll fall in line with the others, this is a great image Andrew. Southern California would have been just about last on my guesses as to where it was shot; that’s amazing.
I love the tree, and the light is very nice. A couple tweaks you might play with to see if you like them would be to bump the saturation of the yellows a tad; that might make the leaves of the tree glow a bit more, and a slight vignette might focus the eye in to the tree even more.
Your comments on the image said that you had to use snowshoes to access this location. Just how many inches of snow were on the ground? Snowshoes in SoCal, never would have dreamed it possible.
Ed, it was a proper snow. 6-8 inches most areas, but some of the meadows I was in had two feet. It was absolutely amazing, I’ve never seen it like this before.
