The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
This is a line of wind-swept macrocarpa trees on a small ridge perched high above the ocean. It is a very stormy area, and on this occasion there were storm clouds coming through while the the trees and hilltop remained sunlit.
Specific Feedback
Any comments and recommendations are always very welcome.
Technical Details
42mm, ISO 100, f8, 1/500s
Cropped to remove some of the sky. I would have liked to include a bit more foreground but it was just too messy.
Wow, what a great and unique scene!!
I don’t think we have to guess which way the wind usually blows in this area.
The serious drama in those clouds add a lot to the story of the tree shape and the scene in general.
I agree with the desire to have a bit more FG to balance things out vertically but a very messy FG might be worse than not having it.
How do you feel about using Content Aware Fill while in the Crop Mode?
It would likely only add grass based on what’s there now. That might be better than including the FG from the original image and trying to remove the mess by cloning or using the Remove tool in Ps.
I should have asked this first, do you use Photoshop or something else?
BTW, I like the panoramic crop!
Thank you for sharing another slice of NZ with us! It’s always very enjoyable to explore the world through other people’s lenses.
Thanks for your comments Merv.
Yes, I do use PS and also DXO PL from time to time. I did try Content Aware Fill to add to the foreground but the results were poor with a blotchiness that I didn’t feel warranted spending much time on.
I agree, it is great to explore various parts of the world, that are foreign to me, through photos posted here on NPN.
Cheers.
What I like most about your image is that it attracts the eye with its simple yet attractive composition, but then when looking from up close - the details of the trees provide another layer of interest. They’re amazing!! Never seen trees that were shaped by the wind like that.
I agree with @Merv that the sky add context and the feeling of a storm. And I too like the panoramic format.
If there’s one thing that I’d change (ideally) - it’s the slope. Not that there’s anything you could do with that, but I just feel it would be stronger if the trees were aligned with the horizontal formation of the clouds. But the place is what it is, and it’s still amazing.
Phil, I am drawn by the story this picture tells of the forces of nature at work. Here are some thoughts. I see strong competing lines in the composition. The green grass and the trees pull my eye out of the picture. The intersection of the sky and clouds introduces a horizontal line that seems almost disconnected from the trees. I think darkening the green would help balance it with the dark clouds. I would also find a way to keep the eye moving in the composition by darkening both the right and left sides of the picture so the strong vertical and horizontal lines don’t compete. Just a suggestion.
By the way, I just returned from a 10-day photo workshop on the south island of New Zealand. I am still in the process of going through my images. You have a beautiful country that looks scrubbed clean–no trash on the roadside, no graffiti within sight in the towns. It was an experience never to be forgotten.
Thanks for your kind comments, including that of simplicity, Tom. Yes, I was aiming for simplicity with this shot…including simplicity of PP . The slope was something I couldn’t really address as the terrain and its clutter in the foreground only gave me this composition to work with and when I tried to adjust the slope later with Content Aware Fill I just got myself tangled in knots so gave up on it. Cheers.
Thanks for that Barbara. I just had a look at your portfolio and saw that you had visited NZ. For some reason there aren’t many (any?) NZ’ers posting on NPN although it seems that a number had in the past but soon stopped. I’ve also had a break from posting recently, but only for health reasons, and really enjoy the site and the opportunities for improving my photographic efforts through the efforts of other photographers here.
I have darkened the foreground a wee bit (below) as you suggest, and it does seem to improve things by adding to the scenario of incoming storm on sunlit trees. Thanks.
While I see what you mean about darkening the edges, I wanted to show the scene with a flow from right to left rather than keeping the eye within the image. When I took this photo, it was the prevailing southerly winds and the resultant shapes of the trees that I wanted to show, and I feel that keeping the eye within the central part of the image reduces that effect somewhat.
Thankyou, I appreciate your comments. Cheers.
I love this image!! Knowing the bases of clouds like this are level shows that the trees are on a natural slope, and that accentuates the drama of their wind-sculpted shapes. A tiny bit more grass could be nice, but this is enough to convey the scene well. Rather than darkening all of the grass, it could be effective to do a gradient with just the bottom darker, although there isn’t much room to work with.
I’ve enjoyed a couple of visits to your beautiful country and look forward to seeing more of it through your eyes!
I just want to say how much I love this image. I too prefer the durker backgroung. For me the diagonal line of the field adds even more dynamism to the dynamic shapes of the threes. Today I have learned a lot from your image and from the very interesting comments that it received.
. The slope was something I couldn’t really address as the terrain and its clutter in the foreground only gave me this composition to work with and when I tried to adjust the slope later with Content Aware Fill I just got myself tangled in knots so gave up on it. Cheers.