Trees to wood

[John Chardine]

I don't venture over here very often but it's fun when I do.

Colours are great here right now and I thought this image subtly says something about what those colours can become- note the very large wood piles along bottom of image. From the Kennebecasis Valley, southern New Brunswick.

The image looks like it could use a little counter rotation but I think it is an illusion.

Canon EOS 40D, 70-200 f4 @ 200
capture date: Saturday, October 11, 2008 3:53:25 PM
exposure program: Aperture Priority
ISO speed: 400
shutter speed: 1/2000
aperture: f4.0
exposure bias: +0.7
metering: Pattern

[Kaushik Balakumar]

Don't think any rotation is required at all.
But some tweaking with midtone contrast might help the image I feel - especially the tree regions. Might also consider cropping off the FG - but that's just me !
:)

[Robert Amoruso]

John,

I can see why Kaushik felt that cropping the FG was needed. The tops of the trees or bushes are cut on the lower edge. Better to include more of them to get a clean line at the bottom if possible or crop up as suggested to lose them. I did a local contrast enhancement (LCE) using USM on a BG copy at 20/50/0. This increase the contrast w/o sharpening the image.

I like the dark sky with the lite trees - that provides a lot of visual interest and depth to the image.

[Chris Starbuck]

John,
Beautiful colors, especially the yellow against blue, & nicely composed overall. I agree with the contrast enhancement.

I've been pondering the issue of "crop from the bottom" since I first saw your post last night. I think you potentially have two images here. The first, as posted, with the log piles included, is a story-telling picture (as well as being a beautiful image). Given that, the bush tops along the bottom don't bother me. If you cropped to remove them, say to the top of the center bush, you'd still have most of the log piles, but to me they just don't have the same impact.

And the second potential image is to crop up just far enough to completely remove the log piles, leaving a fine-art image of autumn color.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi John,
Even though I do like the story of the tree/log piles..........not sure if it is strong enough to convey it.........but that might just be due to the smll image size we are loking at. Robert's re-post would have been my recommendation...........as the colors against the darker sky are very dramatic. I'll go with Chris on this one too..........2 possibilities of presentation........both work for different reasons and audiences. Nicely done.

[John Chardine]

Many thanks for all your very valuable comments. Since joining BPN I have been concentrating on bird photography and I think I've come some distance. My other love is landscapes but I need to put as much effort into this side of photography as the birds. I promise to post more here and learn tonnes as I go!

[Sabyasachi Patra]

I like Robert's version. The increase in contrast helps here. The sky adds to this image.