The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
I flew to Idaho on an Alaskan Turbo Jet to visit my Uncle Bill. He took me to Montana to shoot some photography. I shot this photo for the background and foreground ideas. I do like the train track going off into nowhere with the mountains and snow caps in the background. A simple composition idea but does it really say something !!!
Specific Feedback
Not sure about the composition and black and white editing. I tried to create a simple photo with question on the train tracks …
Technical Details
ISO 200 shutter 100 f 22 or f 24 i used my wide angle lens on this shot. practicing using this lens… manual focus. good practice…
A nice image. The composition is classic, and works well for the scene. You might consider removing the piece of wood in the FG and the small bright half-tree on the R edge, or darken it. Same for the white thing on the track right at the edge. Edge cleanup keeps eyes in the frame. You might consider a subtle darker gradient from the LLC to pull the eye into the scene.
The trees on the right appear a bit flat in contrast and there is a lot of unexpected noise in the sky.
I think this is worth re-processing. How did you do the B/W conversion?
A wide-angle lens has a lot of DOF – I wonder if you needed f/22 or 24. The image looks a little soft soft and you will be getting diffraction softening from the tiny aperture opening. You don’t say where you focused but this would probably work well at more like f/8 or f/11, using a single AF point placed about 1/3 into the frame, depthwise, which would be about 1/3 up from the bottom. You can always shoot several and choose the best one later. It pays to do some experiments with your particular lens, to get an idea of the DOF you can get and what aperture starts to show softening.
I read where you are just starting experimenting with landscape photography and I must say that this image demonstrates that you have a good eye for landscapes.
The tracks are a great lead-in to the BG and the perspective is top notch in my opinion.
All of the elements blend together nicely and the image is inviting as well as appealing!
I think you handled the processing very well because the contrast between lights and darks are well defined, meaning there’s separation.
The wide angle lens may have created distortion but it still looks natural, there’s nothing that looks un-natural IMHO.
Almost every image can be improved in some way and while there are s few minor things in this image, overall, its very pleasing and inviting!
Thanks for the feedback! I may have over edited some. Hard to get real sharp with lots of trees and changing to black and white. I did a lot of dodging to get contrast in the trees.
Thanks again for showing interest.
There is an imbalance here – not that everything should fit one vanilla concept, but the mountain and sky are so dark, and the FG so light – maybe experiment with the balance a bit? It feel more natural to have the visual weight at the base.
I like the mountain and sky, but maybe try more visual weight at the bottom?
