Thank you very much to all of you for your very useful comments.
Bob, your extensive explanation was specially instructive.
Rudi
Guest
15-Mar-2007 14:51
I like this one -- but I love snow. I am not a big fan of cropping, but here I agree that there might be some improvement via crop. It seems to me that the clouds and hillside on the left, and the foreground path are the least dramatic portions of the image. Thus, you might consider cropping the left 20% and bottome 12%. I love the deep grays in the clouds. Best, Cliff
Guest
10-Mar-2007 20:39
This shot has a lot going for it. Nice sky. I like the way the vertical trees break the strong diagonal of the hillside.
In terms of a critique, there are a couple of things that I might try.
Overall, the shot is kind of dark. I might try adjusting the levels/curves a bit to lighten, and maybe bring out some detail on the dark background hillside on the right.
Also, might be too blue overall. During the recent snows here, I tried to really pay attention to the color cast of the sky on the snow. And although this shot is most likely exactly what the camera saw, in "real life" the eye adjusts for the slightly blue case of the snow - something it can't do in a photo. So, I might consider desaturating the blue in the snow and clouds. There should be enough cyan left to keep the sky nicely saturatated. I might do this 2x using diagonal gradients since the sky and snow will require different adjustments.
Finally, I'm trying to decide if the hillside or the sky is the main focus. In general, it's a good idea not to have the horizon split the frame exactly in two on the horizontal. I'd never really given it any thought, but it seems the same thing would be true even if the split is on a diagonal like here. The sky and land are still almost evenly divided. In this case, I think the sky offers more than the hillside, so I'd play around with some crops off the bottom.
All that said, I really do like this shot.
Bob
Glad to see you entered this one. Its a good contrasty scene, well exposed. The IQ isn't great - maybe the compressed version has lost its sharpness? Dunc
