The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
I saw this twisted tree on a hike in the Chiricahua Mountains.
Specific Feedback
I loved the tree but I couldn’t find a composition I was entirely comfortable with. The problem was exacerbated in the color version, where three-quarters of the image consisted of warm oranges and yellows while the upper left was a cool blue. Nothing seemed balanced. This was the best solution I could find. Any suggestions?
Hi Don,
I keep waiting for someone else to comment on this first to see if my feedback is in the right direction, but I can’t stand to see something go uncritiqued. So here goes:
I totally get why you saw something here worth shooting. It’s an interesting rock outcrop, a gnarly tree, a scene divisible into thirds. I think the struggle you felt, and that I see as a viewer, is difficulty getting enough separation between the elements.
I don’t know whether it was possible (I suspect not, or you would have done it), but the composition would work better if the tree were not intersecting with the rock along the horizontal branching and upper right of the tree, or if the tree were completely backgrounded (is that a word?) by the rock and sufficiently different in tonality or color to give it some relief. Of course, that’s not what nature gave you, and sometimes I feel a little arrogant wishing that the world measured up to my aesthetic preferences. In some ways, that’s what best about this image: it reminds us of what is.
I would be interested in seeing the color version, maybe with about a thumb’s width cropped off the right side of the big rock.
I hope someone else chimes in with additional thoughts.
ML
