What technical feedback would you like if any? What artistic feedback would you like if any?
Any feedback is welcome.
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
Single frame, Sony a7, 100-400mm @ 160mm, 1/125s, f/16, ISO 400, (hand held, I think)
Bonnie,
The very first thing that came to mind was “whimsical.” The scattering of light leaves at random over the lightly obscured reflection just makes for a pleasing view.
Any suggestion here would all be of a personal preference nature. Near the center if you took a little bit of an oval shape that encircled most of the central leaves, that area looks a little less contrasty - not quite sure how to describe it - other than to say it’s a little brighter, muddier, less contrasty than the upper third of the image. It carries a little towards the bottom, where I think some simple burning would help.
Love the reflection of the tree trunks and the understated greens; as well as the little bits of ripples giving the reflection some texture and detail. I think playing around with luminosity, contrast, burning, etc. on the bottom 2/3 or so could make this one really pop.
Lon
I really like this, the texture of the water works great for this image. I like in particular, the brighter, greener area in the top left, the contrast and composition of the trees is really nice, would love to have seen a more heavily zoomed version of just that spot.
I’m not a huge fan of the grasses in the foreground, they feel a bit messy in my opinion. I’d go ahead and focus just on the leaves and the reflections.
Bonnie, I like this image a lot. I love the many tones of green and yellow in the scene, and I think your processing of color, WB, contrast, etc. is right on the money. You kept the saturation vibrant without going over the top. I especially like the arrangement of trees in your composition, they are very well organized. I like how they they fan out as you move down the tree trunks.
I agree with @Michael_McGee, losing the reeds at the bottom nicely tightens up the image, and brings attention back to the reflections of the trees, where it belongs.
Bonnie, this is a fine reflection view, with the scattered leaves and cleanly showing tree trunks. I do think that some highlight burning of the grasses along the bottom would reduce their visual impact, letting the reflections and the scattered leaves dominate the view.
Thanks for the input, @Lon_Overacker, @Michael_McGee, @Ed_McGuirk, and @Mark_Seaver.
I agree that the middle of the frame looks less contrasty, and more appealing. I burned the bottom in some, but that made it too contrasty, so I dialed it back. I like Michael’s crop and I have other versions without the grasses, so I’ll have a look at those.
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This is the kind of image that really excites me, Bonnie. I don’t have any preference as to your crop or Michael’s crop. Both works really well for me. I would however tame the bright vertical trunk on the very far right of the image.
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Bonnie,
This caught my eye as some thing whimsical. The floating leaves cutting through the middle of the reflected trunks works real well creating an abstract image.
I agree on the crop and dealing with the lower contrast muddy area with the leaves.
Here is a cropped version and the muddied area corrected. To correct the muddy area, I made a rough selection of the muddy area with the lasso tool. Then feathered the selection by 200 pixels. Then while selected opened a curves layer, and the selection becomes a layer mask. Then I applied an S-curve adjustment, moving the 64 point down to 43 and the 191 point up to 211 to correct the low contrast. But there is also a color issue so I moved the 128 point down to 115 only on the red channel, down to 120 on the green channel and 122 on the blue channel. The result is below.
