El verde de Monteverde (The “green” of Monteverde)

[Juan Aragonés]

Near the entrance of the Monteverde Reserve in Costa Rica I found a giant fallen dead tree covered by a dense tissue of life. Lots of hanging epiphyte ferns, tiny orchids of the size of a pea, cactus, lichens, moss and many other plants fighting between them to find a place in the light. A silent, but dramatic, fight for life in a miniature jungle over a dead tree. I spent a good amount of time enjoying the place and looking for a good angle to photograph the life/dead scene. I went for a backlight composition because the intense light of the end of the day outlined very nicely the delicate shape of the ferns making the plants to pop from the dark background. I love that shining green (verde) again the darkness!!!

Your comments and critics are highly appreciated :)

Nikon D70, AF Nikkor 80-400VR, f5, 1/60s ISO250, +0,5EV, handheld

[Kaushik Balakumar]

Liked the back-lighting in this image & the rich greens. But somehow the composition does not seem too effective in this image. I however do agree that composing such scenes can be very very challenging.

[Robert O'Toole]

The patterns and back-lit greens look great. the image has a nice calming feeling.

For me I think the image would be stronger with less black space at the top and just a little off the left side.

Robert

[Mike Moats]

Hey Juan, very interesting comp and a good choice on the backlighting, really makes it pop.

[Juan Aragonés]

Thanks for the imput guys, much appreciated. Kaushik I agree with you about the composition and Robert, you mentioned very good points to improve the composition. Here is a repost following your suggestions and I have to say that I prefer this new composition. Instead of the fact that I cropped having in mind Robert´s suggestions I decided to darken both the top right and left corners a bit becausem, after croping, there was some distracting points in those areas. Of course, I have this image in landscape format but I prefer the vertical because I think that compliments better the hanging ferns (most part of them are almost vertical lines)

[Gus Cobos]

I like the composition Juan. I like the repost...:cool: