Crossing Over

First of all, I love the lines in this, Ken, and that it flows diagonally from the lower left towards the upper right.

In terms of the concept and your title, I love that too. It causes me to consider in my imagination, what might have happened just prior -- perhas someone resting for a little while after a long walk on the path.before getting some strength together to get up again and cross over that bridge.

I also like the contrast of the strict geometric forms of the bridge and the organic forms of the trees and forest on the other side.

I would suggest a few things for your consideration that may improve the impact of it. First, maybe a simple levels adjustment. I think if you were to look at the histogram, you would see quite a bit of space between the right side boundary and where the histogram falls off. If you bring that slider over to the left, closer to where this histogram stops, and the same on the left in the shadow side, then you would be introducing more contrast, more dynamic range, and I think that would accentuate the formal elements I alluded to above.

Then there are three things, I would suggest cloning out in the following order of importance. First, the curly que black twig at the bottom border at roughly the left vertical rule-of-thirds line. Second, the black blob over near the lower left corner, and finally, a distant third, the little tree just up from the bottom right on the right edge. Things along edges like this can be distracting with respect to your intent for the viewer and I'm not sure they add any value.

B&W is perfect for this, and the vertical alignment is pretty good, but if you look closely at the parallelism between the left edge and the first post of the bridge, that could be improved with a perspective crop. There isn't anything on the right side that the eye can use to discriminate a deviation.

Hope these comments are helpful. As someone who is 65 and recently retired, I find the concept of your image poignant.

From a compositional point of view, this image is beautifully done, but I think your processing could use some improvement. I'd like to see a bit more "white" in the snow. It's too dark & murky as is. I also think I'd be inclined to clone out that twig in the bottom left center. But your POV is really nice, and I think it would be worth the effort to work on it more.

Thank you John and Michael. Your suggestions are exactly what I'm looking for. I appreciate your time and your expertise. I applied your suggestions and would welcome any further thoughts.

I think your reworked version works best Ken. The comp works well.