During reading an article on storytelling written by @Matt_Payne I saw his image of stacked autumn leaves found in a creek in Colorado. It made me remember my image of stacked leaves from the Söderåsen NP here in the southern part of Sweden. The image is from the last fall.
Type of Critique Requested
Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
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
The intention with this image is primarily to show this phenomena of stacked leaves as pleasent as possible. I used a slower shutter speed to show the movement of water, even with this water flow the leaves managed to stack up! This made the leaves below the water surface to become unsharp. To me that adds to the mood of the image, but I also have photos with faster shutter speeds giving reasonable sharp underwater leaves. I kept the blue tint in the water to get a color separation between the blue and the warm leaves. I am not sure if to make the water streaks white is better.
Technical Details
0.4 sec., f/8, ISO 200, 40-150 mm lens at 67 mm (134 mm equiv.), Olympus OM-D E-M1X
Wonderful, and what a terrific nature story. I suspect many of us have come across little scenes like this in the fall, but I know I haven’t seen one quite like this!
The autumn colors are wonderful and I think contrasted nicely with the water, warm/cool is almost always a good feature to exploit if it’s present.
The ONLY nit/suggestion I have would be with the submerged leaf in the LRC. Yes, I do think it’s part of the story and it’s the truth of submerged leaves, which is an important part of the story. Having said that, it’s almost like that patch of sky, or that errant branch or some element too close to the edge that pulls the eye. It’s not a huge distraction, so take with a grain of salt, but just my observation as I move my eye around the frame. I do think there are enough submerged leaves around and above the stack, which is where the story is anyway. No biggie.
While I have seen this phenomenon many times, I’ve never tried to shoot it because it has never presented in such a gorgeous way as you have here. It’s always a snarl of branches and crap. This is downright organized, like nature’s in tray. Your angle and treatment of the light is really wonderful. So distinctive. I think the blue tint works - it creates some separation and further interest because human brains respond so well to color. I have to agree that the submerged leaf Lon pointed out bugs me for the same reasons. I’d clone it out. If there was more of them it might work as a counterpoint to the weight of the stack, but as a single it’s a distraction. And who wants to be distracted from that interesting collection of fall leaves? Really super.
Olan, this is a wonderful image. The fall colors are bright and the stack of leaves is amazing. I’m with Kris on this, when I see them they are not very attractive. Excellent find and nice processing.
