Critique Field, trees, clouds

[ChrisR]

I'd really like some critique of this image, whch I like, with reservations, but my wife doesn't:

EDIT: note this image has been replaced because of the Photobucket debacle; I think this is the correct image but can't be sure. /EDIT



This was taken with my Olympus mju II, which sits in a pocket of my walking jacket, on Agfa Vista 200 film. We walked along the edge of this field, and I was very taken with the line of trees. The image didn't look great in colour; it was nearly monochrome anyway, so I converted it to black and white using the Aperture preset for low contrast (and then boosted the contrast up a bit). I cropped it initially into even more of a panorama shot, but eventually settled on this 16:9 crop as it gave more of the clouds. I left in one telephone pole at the left, as a contrast to the trees, but cropped out the second, larger one.

I have very mixed feelings about it. I've printed it within an A4 frame, and the trees look lost. I feel it needs to be bigger (so may not show up well here). There's a lot of polughed field foreground which isn't very interesting, although I've tried to leave some texture there. The thirds work horizontally, but much less so vertically, and there's not really any serious vertical element in the frame. I was wondering what might provide that? A tall foreground object would make itself the subject instead of the trees. A track in the field would only go so far up the frame.

What compositional tweaks could have saved this shot? Any ideas?

 

[posiview]

It has shades of Michael Kenna about it, so you are off to a good start IMO Have a look at some of his work...

But, I'm not keen on the perspective and would prefer using the trees at more of an angle.

Looks a little flat, and no blown sky but it looks underexposed..

Cheers.

 

[ChrisR]

It has shades of Michael Kenna about it, so you are off to a good start IMO Have a look at some of his work...

But, I'm not keen on the perspective and would prefer using the trees at more of an angle.

Looks a little flat, and no blown sky but it looks underexposed..

Wow, thanks Andy for the pointer to Michael Kenna. The cover shot on his web site is awesome, in comparison.

Putting the trees at an angle is something I've tried a few times, and don't seem able to get right. It looks OK in life and perhaps in the viewfinder, but I end up with a wedge-shaped set of trees that just looks wrong. Maybe I need to be more restrained! In this case, I don't think it would work; there's some kind of rhythm I'm aiming for that would be lost.

I guess under-exposure is likely given it's shot straight into the sun with a fully automatic camera! (I meant to say, 35mm lens as well.)

 

[Andysnap]

I can see what you were trying here Chris, its something I've been after for a while as well. I think that being a bit closer would have given it a boost, the trees need to be larger in the frame from my point of view.

Andy

 

[ChrisR]

You may well be right... I wasn't sure, as I wanted the whole stand of trees in, and NOT filing across the frame. However, I've done a crop to simulate getting closer, concentrating on the right hand end of the trees, and it seems to work (although in the crop the sky is now much less dominant, which doesn't work in a different way) This is the new closer crop...

EDIT: I think this is the correct image, replaced following PB debacle. /EDIT

 

[Andysnap]

Compositionally that works better but you are right about the sky. I think the trick here is to find another stand of trees with the perfect sky at a time when you have a camera with the right film and then take the perfect shot...simples.

 

[ChrisR]

!

 

[abdoujaparov]

I like the composition, but then I've very partial to horizontal swathes of landscape. I just feel the ploughed field is too monotone and muddy and lacks depth. As you have "Edit my images" ticked, I took the liberty of putting a graduated filter in Lightroom to lighten the bottom. I think it gives it depth.

View attachment 7308

Edit: I might have lightened it a touch too much, but I do like the effect. I'd also crop out the distracting wet diagonal stripe bottom left.

 

[Jao]

Chris, I have looked this for a while. I like the idea, there is some nice detail in the sky and the line of dark trees is strong. I tend to prefer a more contrasty image and as has been noted the shots look a little flat. Also I wonder if it was cropped so that the silhouettes of the trees ran from edge to edge, it might make for a slightly more striking shot. I think the darker foreground in the earlier version look a little better than the last one. All of that said I do like the shot and there is something quite strong about the simplicity of the composition.

 

[ChrisR]

I like the composition, but then I've very partial to horizontal swathes of landscape. I just feel the ploughed field is too monotone and muddy and lacks depth. As you have "Edit my images" ticked, I took the liberty of putting a graduated filter in Lightroom to lighten the bottom. I think it gives it depth.

Edit: I might have lightened it a touch too much, but I do like the effect. I'd also crop out the distracting wet diagonal stripe bottom left.

Thanks Keith, that's interesting. I did play with a version at about that level of lightness in the ploughed field, but as I was only doing whole-image adjustments, it made the clouds too light (I don't really know how to do graduated filters, or perhaps brushed-in adjustments, in Aperture). In the end I settled for pretty dark but not black, which also hid that distracting diagonal a bit. When I first cropped it as a narrower panorama, that diagonal was easy to exclude, but when I decided on 16:9 in order to get more sky, I felt I needed to include it or the treeline would get a lot below the third...

 

[ChrisR]

Chris, I have looked this for a while. I like the idea, there is some nice detail in the sky and the line of dark trees is strong. I tend to prefer a more contrasty image and as has been noted the shots look a little flat. Also I wonder if it was cropped so that the silhouettes of the trees ran from edge to edge, it might make for a slightly more striking shot. I think the darker foreground in the earlier version look a little better than the last one. All of that said I do like the shot and there is something quite strong about the simplicity of the composition.

Thanks Adrian. I did think about including trees right across the shot, but that felt wrong to me; it would be too much divided into areas vertically. I thought putting the end of the trees on the lower right intersection of thirds did help. Like you I like the darker version.

So thanks everyone for some very useful and interesting comments. I only had a couple of minutes to make this shot as I was walking with a group, and no real controls at all as the mju II is so automatic (but so nicely pocketable, even in a case). I thought when I took it that it would make a nice image; it didn't turn out quite as well a I'd imagined it, but your comments have been very helpful. This is why I like TP F&C! Thanks again.