Archetypal England!

A classic shot in the aesthetic regime under visual regime. superb in sharpness. Great exposure as both sky, ground, and figures all have kept their details with the image spectacularly noiseless, making me feel at ease and at home with this graceful beauty. I even feel a little green with envy as up to now I have considered myself a landscaper, but Chris has proved me wrong. I feel I have to get back to my books and camera to strive more.

The composition is classic 1/3 ground-2/3 sky placing grated emphasis on the sky and figures which link the ground to the sky, leading the optical movement that has already drawn us into the image when I first laid my eyes on those fine ripples, the tiny I-can't-guess-what object on the water and the superfluous dominating reflection of the heavy group of trees and thickets on the right in a diagonal smooth visual flow which does by no means agitate my feeling.

Once there, my eyes follow the horizontal line of the lake shoreline to the left

where emphasis is placed on that residential place through shape, color and tonal contrast, placement, recognition, tangent, and isolation, A perfect emphasis package right out of classic photography books and conforming to the Gestalt visual principles.

The optical movement is interestingly smooth and conductive, not jerky and undue. This make me feel tranquil all the way in my quest for the exploration of all the stately organization Chris has accomplished so aptly.

The frame is filled nicely with appropriate proportion of figures. The only obtrusive object that Chris could get rid of is the green triangle of the grass-covered shore at the bottom left corner. What a pity !, but don't be mistaken. The rest of the frame is so magnificent that I get back to the gracefulness of such a scene captured so skillfully- a testimony to Chris's connoisseurship and savvy in all the theoretical and practical aspect of photography of landscape. Just look at his position along the lake. It's not a desultory feat, but he seems to have circled the lake all the way to have finally pinpointed this location, stomped his feet, and said to himself " Ok, this is it. I finally got it". Kudos to him for letting me feast my eyes on an eye-catching scene out of heaven.

The triangle is history.

I like soft-focus-filter effect. Here I have added a Gaussian blur mask/ Normal blending/ 34% opacity.

Th same filter, this time with Hard light blending/ 100% opacity which improves softness and hues at the same time

...for your kind and very detailed comment, not to mention the variations on my photo that you so kindly put forward. I'm particularly grateful to you for pointing out the slightly jarring 'green triangle', which I have subsequently removed on my master copy.

Thanks again for your interest and critique.

Best regards, Chris

Great shot, Chris. Nothing can be added to the previous comments...

Best regards Fabio