Blizzard Veil w/2 Repost

Love the high key treatment here Scott. I think the lightest trees are too light actually. I'd try to bring them out a little more, and crop a bit off of the top.

I think the bottom trees are perfect, but I would burn down a few of the other trees to bring the bg back. The drop off of the layers happens too quickly for me. A great scene to work with indeed!

Wonderful atmosphere created by the weather. The soft detail is very attractive in this context.

Scott, I like what you captured here with these conditions. The foreground trees look good as you have them to me. I wouldn't mind seeing the background trees show up just a little more, but then again in these conditions this is probably just what it looked like. A little off the top would work for me. I like your b/w conversion alot as well. Nice work!

Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, WI

I don't think the near trees are to dark Scott. The weather conditions come through nicely in this.

Gary.

This is a very interesting and well made photograph. I like the composition/balance. The conditions (snow?) work well to create this nice effect. The dark/bright transition from near to far works well, but you could maybe lighten the nearest trees a bit.

Scott, I love the etching quality of this! I think a black background would bring out the detail that is probably there already. And, I could see a small crop off of the top, but this is excellent!

I don't think the foreground trees are too dark. I like the image as presented. I like the fade out in the background.

- Dan

Scott,

This is fabulous! To answer your question first off, NO, the darker trees at the bottom are perfect, IMHO. They start what is this wonderful gradient or fading from bottom to top. I mean this goes from clear with detail, to obscure nothing. This is great.

The only suggestion I have would be a small crop off the top. There is space up top with nothing but the gray. I would cut that space in half, still leaving enough of "nothing" to complete the transition top to bottom. Hope that makes sense.

Contrast looks great all the way through. Might be over sharpened? Hard to tell at this size and a larger version I'm sure would be a real treat.

Lon

Thank you everybody for your comments so far. The consensus seems to be a crop at the top, which I think is a good call.

Lon, in regard to the possible over sharpening, I think some of what you see is the falling snow (a lot of really big flakes) creating a bit of the 'noise' look. I actually backed off the sharpening quite a bit because of this.

Here is the cropped version with a little less sharpening, does this look better?

Scott,

Thanks for taking the time to crop and repost. Personally, the crop works great and accomplishes what I thought it would. Looks great. I hadn't considered the falling snow and blizzard re: sharpening. that makes sense to me and really, most times it's tough to sharpen and judge for these small web versions. But the repost looks great on all accounts.

Lon

Cool, Scott! My 2pennies: id crop the two dark trees on bottom--i can take or leave the top, but i think this works best w/ low contrast.

Scott, the larger negative space at the top in your first version really works for me, it is even story telling in my opinion and lets me experience the lonesomeness one must feel standing in the middle of this inhospitable scene. Your composition based on the delicate layers is well balanced and consistent to my eye.

Maybe reducing the contrast in the foreground a bit might enhance the shadowy character. Anyway, thanks for sharing this impressive image.

Peter

Lon, thanks for the follow-up, I appreciate the thoughts.

Stan and Peter, I been torn about the contrast issue at the bottom as well so following your responses I did a little dodging at the bottom to lighten up that area, especially those darkest trees. Is this better or worse?

I like what you're going for here, I think the 2nd repost is the better one. I might try and make the transition from fg to bg a bit less abrupt.