Yosemite Dusting

As suggested, I increased the contrast in the foreground a bit and lightened the trees. I

decided to crop alittle in the foreground as well. Comments?

Super, very nice photo, jitka

Hi Mark

Your shot reminds me of landscape painting where the painter has the liberty of arranging the visual elements the way he likes. Your shot manifests excellent depth with the snow-covered stones in the foreground providing the entry point in to the frame and providing a visual walk into the river which displays a nice slow curve up to the trees in the distance and to the huge rock . The visual path is vey clear. The snow-covered stones in the foreground are light in color balancing with the huge rock diagonally adding dynamism to the balance. The mountain in the distance has diagonal profile which is dynamic too. The two masses are exactly equidistant from the center of the frame which perfect the balance. you were lucky to have those shreds of clouds above the huge rock, for that prevents that portion of the sky to become monotonous to the eyes and completes the frame as well as providing the exit path for the viewer. The exposure is perfect, for you have managed to capture bothe the highlights and colors in the foreground and the highlights and color in the mountain and the sky. It really can't be better. I relished in this beautiful shot reminding me of the places perfect for fly fishing. It even brought back all the fishing memories, so you see that you have elicited response and emotion in me. perfect. cheers.

Pin-sharp landscape shot, with both foreground and background entirely in focus. You must have used a tripod to get such a small aperture. Congratulations!

Beautiful landscape and excellent composition. I prefer this version to the previous.

I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year. Henri

I liked the previous version, but you've made great improvements here, particularly regarding the crop (IMO) of the bottom, followed by the increased contrast of the foreground rocks. I think we need to be careful about lightening dark objects in the shade to an extent that the image starts to look unnatural. You haven't done that here, and the trees look good, but I'm of the opinion that they may have looked even better as darker silhouettes (gives more tonal depth to the image). Great work.

I really appreciate all the comments. I would state that in the end, I agree with Stephen about the darkness of the trees. I adjusted the trees and posted.

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/pc-post-new-1?topic_id=1481&photo_id=5367023

It's nice to see them side by side. Having looked, I'll stick with my opinion that the trees are better in their more natural (darkened) state. You still have some degree of color there, and I like the increased tonal depth that the darker trees give to the image. People complain that HDR too often results in a flat image, and that's the case (relatively speaking) with this lightened image. With these new tools, just because we "can" doesn't necessarily mean that we "should."

Stephen. I do appreciate your comments. I agree just because we can does not mean we should :). It is fun trying new things and much easier than doing it over and over again in the darkroom.. :)