Japanese Garden ~ Royal Roads University

I would hang it on my wall.Great shot.

The purpose of the tree is to frame the bridge, so get rid of stuff outside the frame, ie the greenery on the left, especially the lower left. Otherwise, very nice.

Beautiful

Love the look to this image..that tree simply rocks!

it's like a frame from the movie i've recently seen ("dolls", japanese movie of course:) )

Holy cow that's RED! I like it!

Wonderful color! The tree branches echo the curves of the bridge. Well done.

Don,

 

I went to your website to see if your sell your shots, and I couldn't tell because some of them wouldn't show up when I click to see them larger. If you do, I would love to buy this shot!

You are very good. You obviously make yourself available to get some very good photographs. I hope in my lifetime just to see something this beautiful, but to get a picture of it is just outstanding. Great job. Christa

 

 

 

 

Thanks, Christa for your kind comments. Yes, I do offer my photos for sale - [Go to Don's Community Page by clicking on his name where you will see his website listed]

 

Don Paulson

 

 

 

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Perfect composition, great color, great mood. How was the slightly dreamy look achieved? Filter in photoshop, or on camera?

Taking the Elfish remark on board, for me it is a great photo because the main elements work so well together, the tree is a stunning gateway to the beautiful form of the bridge. The path is the icing on the cake as it leads you to the bridge. There are no other distrating elements (although Carl's point about the crop on the left is a good one). It looks like a Chinese painting and I wish I could take photos like this instead of just talking about them! Absolutely Lovely.

I like the way the tree frames the bridge, but it seems to me this picture either lacks some sharpness, either there was some sort of softening applied at post-processing...? Besides that, despite the very nice composition, I've seen so many amazing pictures of this kind - especially in photo libraries and japanese wall calendars -, that honestly, this one is only second class for me, in terms of interest and impact, when compared to what's available out there. Good, and well captured, but not great - imho.

Very nice color, glorious nature. But I think the photo lacks sharpness, a little too soft that is probably due to a bit of camera movement--a kind of softness that makes me reach for my glasses which I discover are already on my nose :-) But nice color and framing in a 'pretty' sort of way.

Thank you for your comments. The original image is sharp. I added a touch of Gaussian Blur at about 15% opacity in this version of the photo. The intent was to add a more painterly effect when printed as a Giclee Print on fine-art paper. Don Paulson

I admire anyone who can find, much less photograph such a magnificent scene. I don't think the artist achieved anything by his use of gaussian blur. Possibly it could work by selective use, leaving the bridge, for instance, sharp.

 

My problem is with, what else, cropping... I can find half a dozen crops which I feel make a better picture, but most especially by cropping the left side just past the brightest of the red leaves. Those leaves are striking, but tend to draw one's attention away from the subject.

 

Nice overall...

 

Willie the Cropper

It's very pretty the way the tree frames the bridge. 2 things, however. I might crop the greenery out & left. There also seems a bit of a lack of sharpness as well

I think cropping out the greenery at the lower left would result in cropping some of the red tree, which would detract from the picture. I kind of like the Gaussian blur - it looks impressionistic. However, I am left wondering whether an impressionistic effect requires post-processing, or whether by good selection of subject, colors, lighting and composition, the same feeling can be obtained. I do like this photo, but what would really make it appealing for me would be a couple of people on the bridge.

For me the "lack of sharpness" is one of the things I love about this image.

 

In portrait work or images that evoke a mood, I think a bit of softness helps to create that mood. This image does have that painterly feel to it and whether this effect is created in Photoshop or with a filter - in my opinion it works here. Some may not "like" a photo that looks like a painting, I guess, and feel a photograph has to be tack sharp to be a good photograph. Certainly everyone is entitled to their opinion.

 

The composition is also perfect for me... I love where the bridge is placed and that the branches above the arc of the bridge follow the same lines above it. It is a very vibrant and rich photograph that I could look at for hours.

Truly magnificent photo of the garden! It is alive. It breaths. It's calling you to come in, to take a walk.

I like thi photo as it it: the gaussian blur is well thought because of the added softness this place calls.

Also, I wouldn't crop anything as it would result in a loss of distance from the subject and the camera and a loss of perspective.

 

I like that the branch over the bridghe doesn't reach the left border and that we see some greenery.

 

And the green add contrast to the red here. I feel that otherwise, there would be too much red.

 

Great work Don as always!

 

Yannik.

Thanks for the little explanation about the applied gaussian blur. It's an acceptable artistic choice, no doubt. I personally tend to associate such blur effects with "romantisme" and with "impressionisme", but that's just my way to look at it. I used thes blur effects myself before - on portraits only -, but after a while, I got tired of doing so, because I felt it wasn't actually adding anything to my pictures - besides solving skin deffect issues of course. :-)

 

Now this is not a portrait, and certainly I can see a link - a match - between the gaussian blur and a romantic photograph of a natural subject like this one. But then, my personal view would be: either go for a really strong impressionistic interpretation, or let the subject be what it is. I'd also tend to consider that a fine blur is not the best thing on a picture with lots of small leaves - which is why I can imagine it would work much better on a larger size print.

 

In the end, it seems to me, that the alternative could be the following: 1) either you could try a stronger blur, and get a much stronger (but not necessarily better) painterly effect, or 2) leave this picture untouched, with its original photographic quality, which already displayed a painterly mood anyway. Here and at the size of this picture on my monitor, that softness is sort of "in between", troubling my original perception of the details in the leaves, yet not strong enough to actually add mood to the image.

 

Just an opinion, and hopefolly, food for thought. Cheers.

When I looked at this photo early in the week two things jumped out at me. First, I have seen this shot before, this particular Japanese garden shot is probably more common than copies of any of Ansel's photos! That said, it is nice except..... Second, why was it so blurry?? All this has been said here already and I think Marc makes some good points. Here I also have a hard time believing this would look great in a large print, but I am sure many would love it at the right price.

 

What seems to be a major flaw of the image itself is the green in the lower left corner that intrudes on the frame. Since you work in photoshop already, this would be an easy clone and would strengthen the image immensely, along with the elimination of the blur effect.

Oh and altho I don't like cropping another's work, I think "Willie" is on to something with the left side crop--make this about the tree, we don't need that space over there to pull us out of the composition.

I learned a lot from studying this photograph, and from the comments about it. For me, it has very strong dynamic balance with a clear center of interest. My eye starts at the bridge, is led counterclockwise along the tree limbs to the greenery on the left, and inevitably back to the bridge where I lock in. That's a feature not many photos have. But I see that it could be many different photos depending on exactly how it is cropped, and how different effects are applied. It would never have occurred to me to apply gaussian blur to invoke the dream-like quality that produced--nice touch. Because this photo invites playing around, you might try selecting the bridge so as to leave it sharp while softening everything else. That might make the center of interest too strong, or it might be a worthy variation. As it is, this is a great photo--and a great discussion--Thanks.