Sunrise on Bear Lake

Image Critiques Landscape Critiques
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Bear Lake - Aspens Among the Pines.jpg
Bear Lake - Aspens Among the Pines.jpg1584Ă—1136 2.08 MB

Critique Style Requested: Standard

The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.

Description

We were lucky enough to visit Bear lake in Rocky Mountain National Park at sunrise. My simple goal was to capture some of the beauty and serenity that the experience invoked.

Specific Feedback

I am open to all input and one thing I would like to improve is the impact of the photo without sacrificing the serene mood I was attempted to invoke in the viewer.

Technical Details

Handlheld ISO 800, 40 mm, f/8, 1/320 sec. Processed with Lightroom and Photoshop using the techniques that David Kingham and David Thompson teach.

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1 Like
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So picturesque Bill, it surely does fit the serene mood you were shooting for. I think the compositions is wonderful, and the rich late light makes the colors special.

The image is in Adobe RGB, and some browsers don’t show that well. You may want to convert future images to sRGB to be safe.

Was it hazy? That slope on the left is very low contrast, but the close stuff looks great. It might be worth adding some contrast and clarity to that slope. It also may have a slight clockwise rotation that would be an easy fix.

Glad you’re joining in the fun, and I look forward to more images and your comments on others’ images.

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Bill,

This photo just screams tranquility. The warm light is very inviting and the reflection is perfect.

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Thank you for the input John and nice to “meet” you. Yes it was a bit hazy as I shot it at sunrise. I will try the changes you suggest and I appreciate the input!

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Thank you Youssef! Very nice to “meet” you.

6

Having grown up in Estes Park, any image with Long’s Peak in it is going to have an advantage for me! Love this shot! I actually like the haze. I do see a bit of image softness in the trees and wonder if the image might have a bit more sharpness if you’d been on a tripod? You could have lowered the ISO and used a longer shutter speed. Not that the water had any distortions, but I find a long exposure on reflection shots really enhances the reflection side. These are all kind of nit-picky things though as the image overall is very nice!

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Thanks for the input Paul! Yup, it would have been good to bring my tripod along that morning. I also appreciate that you named the peak as I will tag my photo with that now. Nice to “meet” you and I really appreciate you taking the time to provide input.

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Lovely image , Bill. My first take was the sunlit forest could use some softening to keep with the background, but I very much think you got the early, pretty morning feel captured with this one. Nice work.

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Thanks for the input Stephen!

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Wow, now that is some gorgeous light! I love the colour and I love the “haze” as I feel it adds a lot of atmosphere to the image. Overall I think that this was really well done and I like this as is.

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Thanks for the input Tom!