'Tis the season for willow roots to exposed along the creek edges around here. I liked the graphic quality of this little scene, with the straight root cutting across the grass and rocks. The combination of the orange roots and rocks with the green grass clump was appealing.
Type of Critique Requested
Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
Emotional: Feedback on the emotional impact and artistic value of the image.
Technical: Feedback on the technical aspects of the image, such as exposure, color, focus and reproduction of colors and details, post-processing, and print quality.
Specific Feedback and Self-Critique
I make these kinds of photos mainly for aesthetic reasons - they simply appeal to me, so any aesthetic-type critique is welcome. Not sure what emotion I would assign, although the colors feel a bit spring-like, with that nice green.
Technical Details
a7r3, 105mm, f/4.0, 1/320s, ISO 800, hand held, no CP.
Your vision never ceases to amaze me. Wonderful natural abstract.
The first and obvious element that draws the attention of course is the diagonal root. Initially, I’m kinda torn as it divides the image… then again, it’s a very dynamic element - that is abstract by itself and ultimately I think it adds to the image, creates some positive tension and is quite unique!
Hard pressed to suggest anything to improve this -but you know me, there’s always something. Very minor, I could see slight crop left and bottom (like 5%?) just to tighten up and perhaps even a little vignetting. But those are just alternate tweaks to an amazing abstract.
Thanks for sharing and inspiring! I need to get out more!
Hi Bonnie, I think your image is quite lovely! The colors in particular are light and airy as are the tones. Regarding aesthetic improvements, I’m not too keen on the empty space on the left corner leading up to the grass. To my eye, the most visually interesting area is the center especially with the color contrast of green, oranges, pale blues, and other earthy tones.
Absolutely lovely, Bonnie. The soft colors are very calming for me. Has the feel of a water color almost. I do agree with just a tad of a crop off the bottom and left. And maybe, just a tiny increase in saturation? Very nicely seen.
Thanks @linda_mellor, @Igor_Doncov, @Alfredo_Mora, @Lon_Overacker, and @David_Bostock for your thoughts. There seems to be somewhat of a consensus that it needs a crop and a bit more pop color/contrast-wise. I can see the benefit of a tighter crop to make it more abstract - it’s about the color and textures of the grass & rocks, not necessarily their context. As far as color/contrast, as usual I had gone that direction, then gone back to less pop. I can see that it could use a bit more oomph and still not go overboard. Will post a rework. Thanks for the suggestions!
Love this scene, Bonnie. Your rework only made it better. There is so much to see in this little space. I’m just sitting here looking around at everything! The colors, softness, lines and small ripples just blend together perfectly. I’m in aah, that’s all I can say!!
I am late to the party here, but I have to say that I like this image a lot and especially the rework. The structure, lines, shapes and colors really works aesthetically. Very well done!
The only thing I could come up with (a minor one!) is that the brown area in the LRC maybe not is that interesting. If you want you could get rid of it by rotating the image. I just made a quick try to examplify:
Bonnie, this looks great. For me, the appeal is a fine sense of pleasure as it puts me sitting quietly beside a mountain stream on a sunny day. While the extra color and contrast in the repost add a nicely subtle “pop”, I like seeing the entirety of the green bits and prefer the reduced saturation of the root as it runs contrary to flow of the rest of the view. I downloaded and tried some things and found that I preferred the lighter, less saturated view as that fit best with the “sunny day” feeling.
Mark, I’m glad you like the lower contrast version. It’s funny - the day was not sunny at all. It was totally overcast, which actually made it easier to make this photo.
