Virginia Creeper

Nice lighting, nice tones and DOF.

Regards

Gamini

Excellent image! Great light and very well exposed.

Beautiful range of tones and excellent cascading composition.  I took a look at your portfolio, and you have some outstanding B&W work.  Bravo!

Very nice B&W Elisabeth, need some lessons from you on this. Come to Holland!

Thanks, Gamini, Pedro, Maurizio, Christal and Theo for viewing and commenting.  Christal, I really appreciate you taking the time to visit my portfolio!  And hi, Theo, always nice to hear from you.  I don't think you need any lessons, LOL.  I'm still taking notes every time I look at your portfolio.  :-) 

Chuck,

Thanks so much for taking the time to look at this one, and for making the extra effort to think about (and show me) an alternate presentation.  I'm always open to suggestions; sometimes it is useful to see an image through other people's eyes and to stand back and view one's own photo from more of a distance, so to speak.  I don't discount at all the idea that the rotation might look better to some.  There are several reasons it doesn't work so well for me (after studying it for some time); see image with notes below (original on left, your rotated version on the right).  But I readily admit that my considerations for composition are probably idiosyncratic or obsessive compulsive to others, LOL.  I really do enjoy discussing these things, though.  Infinitely better to get an honest, thoughtful critique than the ubiquitous "great shot!" :-)   Anyway, my main issues are (1)  the balance of negative space on the LH and RH sides of the image and (2) the placement of the arcs of lighter leaves and the way they either keep the eye contained within the image or lead the eye out of the image.  I hope my quick, scribbled-on images describe what I mean:

 http://spector.smugmug.com/Before-and-After/Before-and-After/i-zjjSbvg/0/L/rotation-discussion-L.jpg

A beautiful composition with impressive lighting, Elisabeth!

Best regards,

Ruud.

Beautiful composition, detail, tones and lighting! Lovely work and presentation! Thank you for sharing. :)