The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
Bushwhacked my way to a small waterfall not far off the road near Chinook Pass in Mt Rainier NP a couple summers ago. The waterfall was a bust although I can’t remember why but this pristine little pink rose caught my eye. I remember it being a balancing act to get this shot with the cascade in the bg in slight bokeh. I’m pretty happy with it. Usually I’m trying to get the creamy bokeh that we all love so the bg still identifiable was a nice surprise.
Specific Feedback
What do you like about it?
What don’t you like.
Should I have added a vignette?
Other thoughts?
There is a strange, blurry almost vertical line on the right side of the frame. It almost looks like part of the blurred bg. I don’t think it’s something left from processing but it seems out of place. I don’t know what it is. Any thoughts?
Thanks for looking.
Technical Details
Nikon D750
Zeiss 50/f2M w/circ. polarizer
1/5 sec@f3.2
ISO 125
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
This is so light and airy…quite delicate and evocative of breezy summer woods. Thanks for posting it…I’m headed into the woods today and expect no such sights. Maybe in a few months.
What do you like about it?
What I described above as well as the OOF waterfall behind. Even before I read your description, I had a feeling that’s what it was. I think it adds a new dimension in terms of what I imagine it sounded like being there. Having bushwhacked to a waterfall myself back when I lived in NH, I can also imagine the feeling of discovery and hard work rewarded as you heard that water getting nearer and nearer.
What don’t you like.
How close the leaves are to the bottom edge. I’d see if you could reframe with more room at the bottom, eliminating some of the bright leaf blobs at the top.
Should I have added a vignette?
Eh, you could…I’m not a heavy user of vignettes, but they can be effective sometimes. If it emphasizes the dappled light quality here, it might work.
Other thoughts?
Viewed large it looks as if there was a lot of clarity or sharpening applied and since the focal plane is so narrow, it looks obvious and crunchy.
Overall a pretty darn nice shot of what looks like a wild rose of some kind. Very summery and pretty.
Bruce: A wonderful scene and subject and I appreciate your experience. My suggestions for improvement and perhaps what I would do is crop tighter. The upper corners don’t do much for me and I think the space above the flower takes up too much of the frame. In the crop I’ve done it also becomes easy to clone away that vertical line you mention which I wonder if it’s a FG branch that you didn’t notice. If I’m dealing with a stationary subject I’m learning to patrol the edges of the frame for distractions and not get fixated on the main subject. A smaller consideration is your plane of focus which is obviously very narrow and may have been necessary to render the waterfall the level of OOF that you wanted. The unopened pink bud is just slightly OOF where the smaller bud looks to be more sharply rendered. If I had to pick one over the other I think I would have tried to position the camera so that the main bloom and the pink bud were sharp. It may have required f4 or 5.6 to do which may have also brought some other stuff into focus that you didn’t want. It’s these kind of decisions that make composing a scene like this both challenging and enjoyable. >=))>
This is very nice, Bruce. I like the feel of it and having discovered wild roses in a number of unexpected places, I can relate to the story. I was bothered a little bit by a yellow spot just at the edge of the frame below the stem, but in addition to the other things, Bill’s crop does, it eliminates that issue. Picking what should be in focus is actually harder than it used to be in the old days of film when you had movable backs so you could tilt the focal plane every which way (but I don’t think I’d want to go back to those shutter speeds).
Thanks Dennis. Regarding focus When I’m going for a shallow dof it is difficult because it always seems to be a compromise. Give up some of this to get a little of that. The comp is not text book but I was trying to keep the water fall in the bg which resulted in the top part of the frame being a little empty. To me if I had framed the shot more traditionally it would have just been another static composition. Not saying however that my decision was better, it just wasn’t what I was going for.
Thanks for the input Bill. Yeah I hear what your saying regarding the comp. I was shooting with a prime and I remember standing on a couple boulders so I didn’t have the luxury of moving much or taking a wider shot. Excuses, excuses…As I mentioned in my response to Dennis I was trying to keep the waterfall in the bg so the framing is less traditional. Not sure it was a good decision but rules are meant to be broken. If I had shot it at maybe 5.6 the waterfall would be more identifiable and more of the plant would be in focus. I shot this in I believe 2019 so who knows what my complete thought processes were.
Thanks for the thoughtful comments Kristen. If your curious why I composed the shot as I did see my responses to Bill and Dennis. I like my bright leaf blobs haha. When I apply a vignette it’s always very subtle. It’s my theory that even if it is barely noticeable a vignette can pull the eye away from the edges and toward the subject.
is crop tighter. The upper corners don’t do much for me and I think the space above the flower takes up too much of the frame. In the crop I’ve done it also becomes easy to clone away that vertical line you mention which I wonder if it’s a FG branch that you didn’t notice. If I’m dealing with a stationary subject I’m learning to patrol the edges of the frame for distractions and not get fixated on the main subject. A smaller consideration is your plane of focus which is obviously very narrow and may have been necessary to render the waterfall the level of OOF that you wanted. The unopened pink bud is just slightly OOF where the smaller bud looks to be more sharply rendered. If I had to pick one over the other I think I would have tried to position the camera so that the main bloom and the pink bud were sharp. It may have required f4 or 5.6 to do which may have also brought some other stuff into focus that you didn’t want. It’s these kind of decisions that make composing a scene like this both challenging and enjoyable. >=))>