I am trying to show my favorite type of light which is backlit, especially when leaves are new and/or wet. It was a very rainy day in a rain forest and all of a sudden the sun peaked thru the clouds. I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time
Specific Feedback Requested
Composition and cropping. Thoughts on improvements in post processing. This is a crop. The light went away quickly so my first try had to do.
Technical Details
Canon RF 24-105; tripod; ISO 1000; f6.3;1/30s; Had to up the iso and lower shutter speed to stop motion of slight wind. There was also movement because the leaves were wet and dripping.
Bob! Was this on our workshop? This is fantastic! I love the balance of the composition, and the pattern created by those backlit leaves. I like this far better than anything I was shooting that day (assuming it was the same day.)
My suggestions are very minor: I would dodge up (with a hint of light blue color) those dark background areas (such as the right edge and the upper-left), so they match that nice soft upper-middle background. I would also burn (with a dark green color) the little whitish-gray free-floating leaf near the right edge, just above the center.
Lastly I would darken/vignette some of the very edges of the frame where they’re bright. But only the edges, because you don’t want to vignette too far in and ruin the wonderful pattern going on here.
Thanks Alex. I appreciate your advice and will definitely do them. It was on the workshop. The day of the atmospheric river! It was a wonderful 6 days that day included. I learned so much and will be back for more!
I love this image! Great work. Crop is excellent, the planar look to the maple is elegant. Color is such a subjective thing…… If this were mine I would use a Selective Color layer in Photoshop to shift the color of the greens (yellows in PS) to contain more red. Just a few points though. I’m nitpicking! The green of the leaves is a bit blue? It may also just be the translation into jpeg. Really nice image!
This is excellent! The tree branches provide structure to the image and the leaves fill the frame with beautiful color. I especially like how you used shallow depth of field to create separation from the background. Excellent work!
Thank you Brian. This was a beautiful trail and having the sun break onto this tree was very lucky. It is really difficult to make images when there is so much going on and everything looks good to the eye. This one fell in my lap.
That’s really nice Bob! I love Vine Maple, and this is an excellent image of one. May I ask, how was the camera angled? Was it pointing quite a bit above horizontal?
Hi John. The angle was slightly up. I was about 5.5’ on tripod and the tree was no more than 10’. I was probably 20’ away and cropped the final image as I originally took a larger comp and was planning to move in but the backlight disappeared.
Great to see a post from you. Welcome back. You had a great leader on that workshop!
This is an outstanding image. I too love the backlit leaves and you’re really elevated this with your vision and the framing and lines of the moss covered branches.
Processing looks spot on. The only nitpick Alex already picked up on - and that’s a lone top-lit leaf in the upper right quadrant, a little above the center line. I suppose you could clone it out, or otherwise mitigate that reflective surface. Very, very minor, but in a sea of beautiful backlit leaves, that little thing jumps out.
Thank you for your support. I do need to get more involved with NPN. I have learned with every image posted and need to do my part and give feedback to other photographers. You are correct in that I learned a ton from Alex.
The green of the leaves is a bit blue? It may also just be the translation into jpeg. Really nice image!