The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
Over the past couple of years I’ve been exploring a local forest in Shropshire, England. The forest is varied and fascinating. When I found this scene I was immediately drawn to the geometric elements and the autumn colour. I’m hoping to use this image as part of a portfolio of work on this forest.
Specific Feedback
Sorry to be a bit generic, but I’m just very interested in your thoughts and feedback about this image. Does it give you a sense of the forest and does the combination of geometric shapes and autumn colour work for you?
Technical Details
Fujifilm GFX 50S II
Mamiya 150mm lens
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
Hi @DomMcKenzie, You have shared quite a lovely woodland image with us. I really like subtle beauty of the foliage colors, you have presented them without excess saturation or vibrance which gives a lovely naturally warm quality to their hues. The tracery of the fine branches plays really well against the more solid forms of the diagonal trunks, providing a grounded sense while giving the eye lots of detail to roam through. I think you have created a really effective image. Well seen and processed.
Hi @DomMcKenzie, I very much like this woodland scene and your beautiful color work on your image. I very much like the fact, that the autumn foliage is not too saturated which gives it a calm and peaceful feeling. I think the triangular shape of the tree trunks work well, I might suggest though to crop in a little bit more from the right side to maybe exclude the ziggzagging dark branch at the right edge of the frame. Although I very much like the vignette on your picture as it pulls the focus towards the lighter foliage, I wonder how it would look, if the transition of the vignette at the lower part of the image would be a bit softer. Just some thoughts, it is a very beautiful image!
Hi @DomMcKenzie - really liking this scene!
These woodland scenes are so hard to compose because every movement of your camera can introduce new challenges and distractions. I think what you’ve done is a nice job of balancing out various “distractions” or outliers - for example the branch creeping in from the bottom left counter balances the squiggly tree branch at upper right that is really dark.
To answer your question, I think the composition of the leaning trees does a nice job of forcing the viewer into the yellow leaves which are the hero here for sure. I do wonder how the scene could look with a slight crop in from the right, although I think you need that stuff to balance out the chaos on the left. What a condundrum!
The image maintains a realistic color palette and gentle contrast, which enhances the peaceful and organic feel of the forest. There’s no artificial overprocessing, making it a great fit for natural landscape photography.
The misty or overcast lighting conditions prevent harsh shadows and give the image a painterly feel. The soft light allows the details in the foliage to remain visible without being overly contrasty.
While the golden leaves in the foreground draw attention, the image as a whole feels somewhat diffuse in terms of where the viewer’s eye should settle. A slight tweak in composition—perhaps isolating the brightest cluster of leaves more strongly—could help provide a clearer subject.
I’ll have a play with the crop but I think as @Matt_Payne says it’s ultimately a compromise on way or the other. I will also have a look at emphasising the yellow leaves a bit more without it looking unnatural.
This is wonderful! A great example of “order from chaos.” My first impression was thinking of Zion National Park. I’m not sure if the case, but it looks and feels like the forest/trees are in front of a wall of some kind - ie. like you might find in Zion or elsewhere like Yosemite.
But that doesn’t really matter what’s back there, the combination of colors and lines, the foreground trees against a background. This just works beautifully.
I do appreciate the tameness of the colors, although I personally don’t mind a reasonable punch of color/sat. I draw the line at “is it reasonable, believable.” And I think you have room, but again this works perfectly as presented.
My only suggestion might be a bit of a crop off the bottom. It’s mostly clutter at the bottom and the image I think could be simplified somewhat in the composition, excluding some of the intruding twigs and debri. But that’s minor.
Woodland forest scenes are so tough to frame up and compose and considering all of the chaos in this image, you’ve done a great job at leading the viewers eye to the center of the, “Teepee.” That’s immediately where my eye is drawn into with those golden hued leaves standing out against the background. Yes, there are triangles galore. I love it. Is that what drew you to photograph this scene? The colors seem very natural and to my eye have a little room for some extra pop if you are so inclined but they are serene and subdued as is and I’m enjoying your subtle processing approach.
If I were to make a suggestion it would be to dodge the ULC just a smidgen as It’s darkness leads my eye. Maybe just the very darkest sections of the branch going out of the frame. That’s about all I have for you and it’s a very minor nit. I love all the squiggly branches in the URC and along the right edge. They are very playful. You’ve presented a beautiful image that allows the eye to freely roam without getting too locked in which is saying something for such a chaotic scene.
This image feels musical to me. The small dots of yellows feel like sounds. It’s really a very poetic creation. The subtle colors work together to convey emotions. Lovely work.
@David_Haynes it was a combination of things that drew me to it. It certainly was the triangles but also the colours. I was attempting to photograph something else at the time and then noticed this and abandoned the other idea. It just sort of leaped out at me.
Hi Dom, with regards to the competition, images such as this are very popular and many are submitted and so the standards for progression are really high. Fortunately the image ticks a lot of boxes which would help it progress to the second stages. The sense of shape in the composition is really strong. The two trunks forming the A shape work well and the cluster of yellow leaves n the top left are lovely. I also like the sense of looking through or in between the two trunks in the very centre of the image. However, that sense of looking through isn’t really strong as there isn’t a ‘picture within a picture’ effect that I personally like.
One of the big negatives for me is the really dark area in the bottom 1/5 of the image. It really pulls my attention down as it’s quite contrasty. I would try to mitigate this of possible. There’s also the quite ‘messy’ trunk/branch at the bottom left.
With images such as this being popular, I tend to stack up the levels of ‘what else has it got’. e.g. It’s a strong composition but ‘what else’, it has that picture within a picture but not that strong 'but what else has it got. Here, I’m running out of those whereas with images that progress a lot further in this genre they tend to have more ‘what elses’
