Fiery Fall Foliage

[Rachel Hollander]

This past Sunday I went with friends to an outdoor sculpture park about an hour north of NYC. We timed it perfectly for peak foliage colors. I don't ever remember seeing such vivid oranges, yellows and reds. It had rained in the morning and there was still a lot of cloud cover but at times the sun would peek through and illuminate different areas.

Canon 5D3
70-200 II @ 165mm
1/180
f8
ISO 100
HH, slight crop for comp, levels, curves and sharpened in CCPS. Though I do not usually clone, it was necessary to do so to remove a small piece of a sculpture coming in on the left.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel

[Don Railton]

Clone??? Is this the same Rachel Hollander..??

Nice colour in the trees Rachel...You guys are soo lucky to have this. I remember being taken by this colour fest a few years ago in with my trips to MD. In the autum here the trees dont change except for a few exotics..

DON

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Don, yes, but since it was a hand of man element I didn't mind cloning it out:w3.

[David Cowling]

Lovely foliage colours and I like the bottom part of the image. If it were mine I would have left the sky out completley as I dont think it tells us anything. Thanks for showing us your beautiful NY State? Autumn colours.

[Valerio Tarone]

Rachel hi, I agree with David that the sky isn't interesting, I shloud completely off. All my best.

[dankearl]

I think the sky could be tweaked enough to give it more interest with a bit of work.
The fall color is nice.....

[Morkel Erasmus]

Lovely colours throughout this scene, Rachel.
I do wish the light was more rich so as to enhance the fall colours more. I can see a crop from RHS to eliminate the section of large tree working well...

[Don Lacy]

Lovely scene Rachael, Agree with the others on the sky but since there is no way to get rid of it without losing the top of that wonderful red tree on the right I would crop about half of it out.

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks guys for the comments and suggestions. I will revisit the sky to bring a bit more detail out but Don is exactly right as to why it cannot be eliminated. The tallest and for me, best tree, intersects with the sky very slightly and I also don't want to be too tight to the top of the tree. Morkel - it's the same reason why I didn't crop out the stuff creeping in from the right. It brings the edge too close to that tree which I consider the real focal point of the image. Though I am happy to have someone post a crop that they think works better.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Andrew McLachlan]

156722
Hi Rachel...this is how I would crop the scene...a bit off the bottom to evict the oof dried flower heads, about half of the sky, but could not crop enough to get rid of the tree on the RHS as it came too close to the main Sugar Maple...but since you have begun to add cloning to your workflow you could always clone out the little bit of the tree that remains on the RHS upper corner :S3:

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Andrew - the crop works but cloning is still not a part of my normal workflow except for hand of man elements and dust spots.:S3:

[Andrew McLachlan]

No worries Rachel...I understand and respect folks decision not to crop :)