Saturday evening I went to Morton Overlook in the Smokey Mountains to see if I could get interesting sunset photos. There were storms which made the sky a little dramatic. I am looking for critique on any aspects for improvement.
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
Hi Shawn - you had beautiful lighting and conditions for this shot. This location is a great spot for sunset in the summer months. I really like the mood created by the fog. The intersecting ridge lines at this location make for a classic composition.
One suggestion would be to crop the image to a 5X4 aspect ratio as shown in my re-work. Although this is subjective I felt like the original post was a bit out of balance on the left. By cropping just to the left of the Chimney Tops the mountain ridges are closer to the same height which to my eyes creates a little better balance in the image overall.
Thanks. I agree with your crop. It looks much nicer.
Dear Shawn, you found a great scene with a spectacular light. I like the layers of the composition, they add depth to the image, but regarding post processing i personally did not like the halo in the upper left and the saturation of the fog. I would reduce saturation in the centre and correct the halo. It’s also my opinion, the image works well as is. Thanks for sharing.
Beautiful, ethereal photo. The purplish cast of the fog and clouds is set off by the complementary orange of the break in the clouds. The repeating triangular forms of the sky and the area of fog area nice. I agree about cropping some off from the left to make it more balanced.
I like the scene, but the fog is hiding a lot of detail. The thing that jumps out at me the most is the magenta hue to the fog. It doesn’t feel quite right even with the sunset light. In addition, there is some area of blue fog that don’t exactly feel like a match with the magenta fog. I’m not really sure of the best colors here, but maybe aiming for more consistency throughout the fog would be helpful.
