Winter Trees

[Andrew McLachlan]

Went for a drive yesterday to search for some Snowy Owls as I have seen several along the rural roads near my home, but found none on my drive. It was a warm, slightly foggy, and drizzly day which is a bit of a relief from the extended, bitter cold snap that saw the night-time temps dipping down to -27 C. During my drive I came across this scene of winter trees and decided to create a few various compositions. This one here is with the 1.2x crop selected on my D800. I though I would leave the exposed grasses / weeds in the foreground to see what folks think of them...evict them or leave them?

Look forward to comments.

Nikon D800
Nikon 80-400 VR lens @ 250mm
ISO 200
f16 @ 1/40 sec
mirror-lock
cable release
Live View used to fine tune focusing

136645

[peter delaney]

Hi Andrew

A beautiful simple composition, I really like the monochrome look to image. There is just a slight color cast easy enough to remove . Otherwise you have a wonderful image to print ….

Personally I would clone out the smaller weeds etc in FG ..

[David Stephens]

I love the composition. I think I'd take it all the way to B&W and pull the Blacks down a point or two and raise Contrast a bit.

There's post on the left that I'd crop out. Still, great shot as is.

[Luis Patacao]

Hi Andrew, really like the composition, aldo i agree with david and would pull up a bit the contrast and play a little more with the blacks. Regarding the small weed in the foreground i would only clone out the tiny ones and leave the ones closer to the tree, i believe is gives a sense of depth to the image.

[David Stephens]

Now that Luis mentions it, I'd clean up most of the weeds sticking through the snow.

[dankearl]

I like the stark effect. It would work better for me with a horizontal horizon.

[Don Railton]

Hi Andrew

I like it...! my suggestion is to do the weeding (evict) and raise the contrast just a little... I think the weeds are just distractions to the beautiful lines offered by the trees

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Andrew - I too really like the comp though I wonder if going up the hill a little bit might have been better by giving you a bit of base of the trees on the right. My first thought was also to punch it up slightly and go a bit starker. Although I hesitate to clone, in this case with a more arty shot I would clone out the stray grasses. I'd love to see a rp after you've had a chance to take the suggestions on board.

TFS,
Rachel

[Andrew McLachlan]

Thanks folks for the comments...much appreciated...I will try to do a repost in a day or two...

[Morkel Erasmus]

Love the simplicity here Andrew, and for a fine art print I would agree that you need to clone out the bits of grass in the foreground.
:5

[Don Lacy]

HI Andrew, Nice simple graphic image I would also clean up the grass to give the image a more barren feel

[Andrew McLachlan]

Here is the repost. Cloned out the exposed weeds, but did not go starker as I was not really liking that look.

136898