I’ve been eyeing up this spot for a few weeks now and finally left home early to make sure I had time to go out of my way to get there. Aside from this quick edit I’ve not spent any time on it at all.
Early edit done with dt 5.0, windows. Applied Sony A6300 camera style, tone eq, crop and perspective, contrast eq, exposure, and graduated density.
This file is licensed Creative Commons, By-Attribution, Share-Alike.
The colours reminded me of autochrome so I went for that look.
last-feeble-grip-of-winter-DSC08542.ARW.xmp (23.9 KB)
dt 5 master
I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with this scene. Not sure if my choices were any good here.
I think this exactly is the point on this photo. I think Adam haven’t bee eyeing up this spot for a few weeks without a reason, even so this picture leaves one a little bit puzzled. I think it is the same problem like I had with this picture here:
How to bring life in a boring photo.
It is a nice place but the problem is, there are very few motives to concentrate on. So one is tempted to just take a photo of the whole scenery. Unfortunately, this quite often leads to a somewhat boring picture, because there is no subject and nothing special. Especially when it is a day with diffuse light.
On this image the eye has no clue where to look, so it looks where there is usually the subject - to the mid. But there is nothing. So it wanders around, but doesn’t find anything that says: Look at me!!!
Don’t get me wrong there don’t have to be always a subject, but for a good photo there has to be something “outstanding” this can be a subject, a special light or a perspective the eye is not used to.
What makes it hard to edit the photo? Most of the objects which would be at least somewhat suited to be the main subject are at the edge of the picture. The bush in the front could have been. The tree as well, but both are quite cramped to the edge.
So what to do? I decided anyway for the tree as subject and extended to motive a little bit to the mossy area besides the tree.
Both are actually too unimpressive to be a real subject, so we have to make them more present. I did it in the end with a similar way like I did it on the forest picture. I used colour and light to make them stand out. and tried to guide the view. I changed as well the perspective to get a bit more tension by bringing in a bit of golden ratio and to avoid these leaning trees.
Finally, a bit of an arty frame and I think the photo has won a little bit of attraction:
I asked Adam if it is OK for him to write some constructive critique. Thank you for agreeing. I hope that this critique is helpful.
… just in case if anybody thinks, I want to say Adam is a bad photographer, take a look here and here. Especially the first one is iconic.
Thank you for the play.
In this photo edit I try to keep a bit of the natural colors and light, that’s why the image is maybe a bit flat. Also hardly used local contrast.
With ART, GIMP and G’MIC:
I would probably have cropped this to focus on some details, but I was interested what I could do with it uncropped. I had fun with this one, thanks!
DSC08542.ARW.xmp (18.5 KB)
Couldn’t resist having more fun with this one. Went for a mystical dream-like scene this time…
DSC08542_01.ARW.xmp (13.1 KB)
