Damon Pond

[Bee Emily]

Chesterfield Massachusetts USA
about 9am

Canon 20D
monopod
f5.6
Iso 200
40mm

Please C and C

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Bee,
You handled the exposure very nicely and the colors pop nicely also. I find the whitish things on the shoreline do not add tot he image and tend to draw the eye......but they are minor. I often find that these type of images are difficult to compose here in the east.......as our mountains as dramatic as they are in the west.........so finding dramatic and pleasing comps is much more difficult. You do have a nice curvature to the lines of the mountains......but for me it isn't enough to make a pleasing overall composition. Not enough of a center of interest for my eye to rest on.
When I find myself In situations like this.......I tend to focus on the smaller parts of the scene rather than the whole. I would work on the far shore central red trees and reflection with the bare trees next to it........or simply work the reflections. I too am always tempted to capture the whole scene.........many times it is much more effective to capture only a portion of it and still convey the sense of the whole.

[Robert Amoruso]

Bee,

I understand what Roman is saying. Recently I was presented with the same problem and ultimately just concentrated on small groups of trees and their reflections.

I recropped this to a pano of the trees and reflection only, horizon right down the middle. John Shaw has written that centralized horizons can work with reflections and I think that is the case here. Of course you can crop left and right too the better balance the image.