Spring Aspens in Morning Light

[Matt_Lancaster]

With sunlight over the shoulders of this stand of aspen trees, their structure was illuminated against the shadowed background. Taken in May when aspen forests are only beginning to show leaves.

What technical feedback would you like if any?

Any

What artistic feedback would you like if any?

This is full frame. I experimented with cropping to remove distracting illuminated branching and trees but felt it reduced the amount of dark framing by the shadows too much and resulted in awkward proportions to the final image. What crop would you perform?

Pertinent technical details or techniques:

Nikon D610
70-300 mm f/4.5-5.6 lens
300 mm
1/125 sec
f/8.0
ISO 100

[Nathan_Klein]

Hi Matt,

The light looks great. I’m wondering what made you choose B&W over colour? I’m imagining these aspens to be nice and golden.

To answer you question, I probably wouldn’t crop but would consider cloning out the bright tree in the upper right and the bright tree touching the bottom part of the frame in the centre.

[John_Williams]

The light dancing through the treetops is very good here Matt. I agree with @Nathan_Klein that the crop is just fine, but addressing the brighter spots on the edges with contrast adjustments or cloning would help the eye land in the image.

[Matt_Lancaster]

@Nathan_Klein, @John_Williams Thanks for your critical eyes. I’ll work on edge patrol.