Awash with Autumn

[Julie Kenward]

Well it's been awhile since I had anything worthy of a landscape image for this forum but with fall starting to pop I finally have some color to show off!

This image was created right before dusk tonight. I'm really going back and forth on the crop - I went to a wide pano but I'm open to suggestions. There are both a little more sky and a little more water if I need them. Let me know what you think...

Canon 40D, EF 17-40mm f/4L
f14 @ 1/40th, ISO 400
Manual mode, pattern metering, handheld, natural light
Processed in ACR & CS4; added a touch of brightness, contrast and clarity in ACR.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Jules,
Spent all weekend chasing colors myself! I think you have enough sky and the water amount is fine for me also. These type of photos are tough because the eye always looks for a focal point.....and you actually have one....for me the strong colors of yellow and orange on the left work as one and the opening and trunks next to it form a nice contrast. I am not fan of the dead tree on the right....so either a patch/clone.....or crop out would solve that. It appears you have a rule of fourths comp.....yes, rule of fourths.......and the clone/patch would keep that.....the crop makes it back to a ROT. Focus on putting something like the trunk area in a ROT position and that will help when composing these type of images. Nice light and pretty good colors popping too!

[Julie Kenward]

Thanks, Roman...I always have trouble with tree landscapes. To my (untrained) eye I thought the bright colors on the left were 1/3, the open area of tree trunks in the middle was the next 1/3 and the bare tree on the right was the far 1/3.

And just so you know...I actually dodged that bare tree to show up better because I loved it so much - that's the beginning of what is to come in another few days and I thought it gave a nice contrast to the hot orange flame going on at the other end.

I have so much to learn. I bow to the master... :D;):D