Captal Reef NP

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Nature Photography Image Critique : One Thread

This was taken on a day when I saw only one other person, well one other car, from a mile away. It was a great day of solitude and this photo reminds me of it.

-- Pete Dickson (dickson.pn@pg.com), September 01, 1998

Answers

On my monitor, this is, more or less, a blue monotone image. The composition is a bit weak IMO. Some colour contrast or more interesting background, or bigger tree or feeling of depth would all have helped. See "Jeffery Pine" to see what I mean.

-- Paul Lenson (lenson@pci.on.ca), September 01, 1998.

Getting closer to the tree and waiting for better light would have transformed this from a snapshot into an excellent photo. As Paul said, look at Doug B's Jeffrey Pine photo. You can argue the merits of his composition, but the lighting is excellent and the texture in the tree and the rocks adds interest that this photo lacks. While this is a nice scene, the photograph tries to take in too much and thus fails to draw in the view

-- Darron Spohn (sspohn@concentric.net), September 01, 1998.

Arggh! The kiss of death "snap shot." Damn, I worked this thing. See that branch? It doesn't intersect the rock because I walked forward and shot a little up. The other silhoutted shape on the right was put there on purpose. The cloud was put there on purpose --- ok, I waited for it to move. This was afternoon - I wanted to go back the following morning but it rained and the road becomes impassible. Maybe next time. But none of that matters --- maybe I should photoshop a sasquatsch silhoutte in there?

-- Pete Dickson (dickson.pn@pg.com), September 01, 1998.

Sorry Pete to be downer. I can see that you gave it some thought - the position of the tree in relationship to the rocks seemed planned, however, because the rocks and the tree reside, more or less, in the same plane, you effectively have just foreground (rock and tree) and background(sky). For me this wasn't enough for monotone like image. An earliar posting had a boulder and a tree on some bedrock. That composition is similiar to yours but it works better because of the colour contrasts. Keep trying, IM0 this image just needed a bit more.

-- Paul Lenson (lenson@pci.on.ca), September 01, 1998.

Well, Pete, I like the image!

I think it has good graphic qualities and resembles what an illustrator might come up with using those elements. It is very simple, hard-edged and the monchrome is perfectly in line with those qualities.

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), September 01, 1998.



I like the image very much. I find it very expressive (feely), technically good, and what else does matter?

-- Jana Mullerova (jam@terma.com), September 02, 1998.

Well Pete, I got thinking about Frank's remarks and my own. Frank's correct in pointing out the "graphic" possibilities. I thought about that and it occurred to me that making it more like a graphic would make it better. I squinted by eyes and it looked better. So I cut n' pasted it into paintbrush, and using the "air brush" tool quickly darkened up the rock ledge that the tree is on to almost the black with a slight grey-white hilite on the top. Of course you can mask the area and selectively darken it with photoshop or some other digital darkroom. The result was very satisfying. The darkened rock adds weighting to the black tree. In the original version the lighter rock colour was diverting attention from the tree. By darkening the rock the image becomes more harmonious. This "modified" image" I think is great.

-- Paul Lenson (lenson@pci.on.ca), September 02, 1998.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ