Not me! I pulled over in an intersection and could have stayed for hours without anyone coming by. Ah rural Wisconsin.
These were taken right about 4pm the other day when it’s starting to get too dark to handhold this kind of thing, but handhold I did and learned that even if the OIS switch is turned off on my long telephoto, the IBIS does a great job. I couldn’t see any difference in the photos, but in the field the difference is huge. Without it turned on I can see the shake and unsteadiness in my hands. It kind of freaked me out a bit until I realized what was happening. With OIS turned on, the shake was greatly reduced in the viewfinder.
Type of Critique Requested
Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
Technical: Feedback on the technical aspects of the image, such as exposure, color, focus and reproduction of colors and details, post-processing, and print quality.
Specific Feedback and Self-Critique
Which crop do you prefer and why? The editing is very slightly different with both, and so I’m interested in comments on that, too.
Technical Details
Handheld
Lr for a lot of the basic work to bring up whites, adjust white balance, get some drama in the sky, crop and remove some distractions. Topaz Denoise to pull up some detail and noise reduction.
Beautiful photo image, Kris. I like both images and favor the second one. The image expresses the cold out there and the snow looks well balanced with the barn.
Thanks, @Dean_Salman - it wasn’t terribly cold (around 20), but I think the absence of any vegetation there makes it seem more severe than it was. Maybe the ditch weeds in the first one don’t convey the same austerity.
Kris, I’m going to get in trouble here. I prefer the warmer processing on the first image.
Although I prefer the second with the crop of the FG grass missing. In fact, I might even take the small tree on the left out with a CA / Clone.
For me it’s all about the depth of this snow showing it’s height on the barn & silo. I’m really into that scene of those two items as the main attractions overall… EDIT: actually the easiest change would be the first and just crop the grass out…
Kris, these are great. I like them both, but as @Paul_Breitkreuz said, the first one hits me more and I would also crop out the grass foreground.
And yes, who can resist a red barn??? I love the red/white contrast here. Really nice. The comps on both are great. Actually the more I look at them, I think the second one has a better positioning for the barn, but the tree on the left is a distraction. Still, the warmth of the first one draws me.
Thanks for posting both. It’s fascinating to see them together.
Thanks @Paul_Breitkreuz & @David_Bostock - ok, weeds have to go and the tree so I’ve posted yet a third shot above. Slightly warmed the white balance as well.
@Paul_Breitkreuz, @Mark_Muller, @David_Bostock & @Jim_Gavin - thanks for helping me refine the selection and the presentation. As you can probably tell, I walked up & down the road adjusting the composition and because I couldn’t get any higher, the ditch weeds were there in nearly every shot. For the final and the one you all like the most, I cloned out a few that were still in the way.
This is really nice!
We had a barn similar in size to this but with a Gambrel style roof. Our cousins had one like this but larger and also with the Gothic Arch style roof.
My dad built the Gambrel roof because it was cheaper and easier to build but not as strong as the Gothic Arch style, it’s still there all these years later but it hasn’t see any super high winds either.
This is certainly picturesque and version three seems to be my choice as well.
Those wonderful moody overcast skies make all the difference for red barn scenes in snow don’t they
No one can! I like the first one best. The grass is a nice FG and adds depth to the image as well as emphasize in some way the snow mound to explain to the viewer why not all of the barn is seen.
Thanks @Shirley_Freeman, @Merv & @Ola_Jovall - probably most of that snow is gone now. Mid-February and there is open water on the river in the backyard. Very weird. But it was cold then and I’m glad I got this when I did. Funny about the weeds, I kind of like them as well, Ola. They speak to me of rural places and the wildness that fills in the cracks of farm life.
