The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
When you’re walking around Ahwahne (Yosemite Valley) and don’t have any better ideas, you do an Ansel Adams.
Specific Feedback
Another quick grand landscape shot on my phone. The vignetting is probably too much for most folks here, but I think it’s just part of my style at this point. The busy-ness of the trees is probably the trickiest part of this kind of composition. Keeping in mind that all I had was my phone — basically an ultra-wide prime — how would you try to manage the trees?
Technical Details
Cropping, tonal adjustments, B&W conversion, and vignetting done in On1 Raw 2023
Well how about the little snowman hiding in the corner! A fun touch. For the trees you could try to target some colors in the black and white conversion. The other thing I could see would be to use a brush and try to burn it in a little bit. A challenge for sure but you may be able to improve on it a bit.
Yosemite with snow on the ground must have been a treat. I found the leaning trees a distraction. It would be easy to fix in Photoshop by picking one of the trees that should be upright and allowing the crop to make the trees vertical.
Thanks @David_Wallace and @Barbara_Djordjevic for the suggestions! Here’s a quick revision: an AI-generated mask over the trees with exposure dropped 1 step, and tweaks to the crop to straighten the trees on the right a bit. Getting those trees perfectly vertical would mean cutting into the bridge and North Dome (the smaller granite dome on the left). The very rough mask is causing some issues with the cliff above North Dome, but for now I have to get to work!
When something in the picture isn’t straight, i.e. vertical in this case, it doesn’t matter what is in the picture. That is a major distraction. What it means is that you have to be willing to sacrifice other features to achieve the necessary vertical lines. That is a tough choice to make.
