I’m taking advantage of the lockdown to go back through older images, and catch up on my processing backlog. This image of the Sol Duc Rainforest was taken on a spring 2018 trip to Olympic NP. I spent most of my time around the Lake Quinault area, and the Hoh rainforest. But the last night of my trip I splurged and stayed at Lake Crescent Lodge hoping for a nice sunrise at Lake Crescent. The next morning I woke up instead to this thick fog, but ended up with a decent consolation prize in this image.
The needles that hang from those trees are so graceful. I think they add a lot to the atmosphere of all those ghost trees. There is so little color here that it’s almost a b&w. I don’t know how you feel about it but you could experiment with different color casts. That’s what I’ve been doing with mine.
The most interesting aspect of this image is the diagonal tree meeting up with the tree in the center of the image. Without that tree this image has less visual impact. The fog is also essential for this to work the way it does. Not sure what a black and white would look like but I think there is just enough color to pull this off. The soft light is in keeping with the soft textured pine needles. I agree with Igor that you could play with hues and different color approaches but I’m not sure you’re gonna come away with anything better than this one. I’ll take a consolation prize like this anytime!
Wow Ed, this is marvelous! And in many ways a bit different, but not sure I can describe why it’s different, unique.
I definitely agree with David about that smaller, diagonal tree. That is key to this image. But there’s more to this. The fog of course, the trunks visible in the bg, and the bows… This is quite wonderful.
I’m not sure there’s anything to suggest for improvement or even an alternate.
Just like in a hand of poker, “I’m standing pat” Wonderful image.
Thank you all for your comments, I appreciate your input. I’m glad that people seemed to like the diagonal leaning tree, i love how it creates a big triangle shape in the image. The colors here are pretty much how I remember that morning. But based on the suggestions here I decided to fool around with adding a cooler blue color to tone the image. I have posted it back with the original, and would be curious if you feel like it is better, I’m not sure myself.
I have become much more liberal with color manipulation. This is the direction I like to take these fog forest scenes these days. I found this by accident. I left the wb in the ‘shade’ mode and the canon produced something close to this. This was a color scheme a ‘Kathy’ used decades ago for the Sierra Wilderness calendar which I really liked. So I’ve used it for some images but not always.
Interesting, this looks somewhat like filtered light from all the greens in a rainforest. I’ve only been to Redwoods/Olympic a couple times, but sometimes I have seen light similar to this effect.
I like the foggy images, Ed. Fog is in the NPN airwaves these days.
I think both images work because light can be warm or cool depending on the thickness of the fog and the angle of the sun (time of day), so I don’t have a preference.
And foggy forest images usually feature more trunks and branching than foliage, so this is a welcome departure. You framed it well to avoid cutting off any foliage. Nicely done.
The only criticism I have is nothing you can control: that leaning tree on the right side is a distraction to my tastes. Just me, though.
Nice work Ed!! I really like the cooler of the two images you presented. Fog makes this shot stunningAs a point of critique, I feel that the small tree in the bottom right of the frame distracts from the two main trunks ascending upwards. It’s merely an observation and am not suggesting to clone it out. Other than that, I’m a fan.
I prefer the original. It more accurately represents what I have seen in the area on foggy days.