Diana's Bath

Nancy,
I really like your composition and the colorful leaves in the background. I think the placement of the waterfall is fine. More DOF would have been nice, perhaps by stopping down a little more. You have sharpness in the tree and foreground rocks but the midground rocks and trees in the background are a little soft.
Sharron 

Nancy, I thought your composition was interesting, creating a kind of visual tension that made me wonder what was off to the left.  I was surprised to read that you wanted to minimize attention to the tree, because it appeared to me that the tree was the subject of the photo, since everything behind it is out of focus.  Shooting at a small aperture such as f/14 in this case, is usually an attempt to get more depth of field, which was even more puzzling to me.  For a photographer of your experience, I know that this was not a mistake, so I can only assume that it was an artistic choice, as was placing the falls on the far left, flowing out of the frame.

Being used to offering critiques based on subject matter and standard execution to illustrate the subject, I am at a loss to critique this image.  I doubt that you need a lecture about selecting focus points with your equipment, or finding the hyperfocal distance for a given focal length and aperture.  I am neither an artist nor a philosopher, so all I can tell you is how this image makes me feel. (And I do this at the risk of appearing like the art critic who writes thousands of words about the deep meaning of a painting, only to find out that it was the result of somebody accidentally toppling an easel full of paint containers onto a canvas.  :D )  Your two choices -- focus and composition -- result in making me stare -- with some effort -- more deeply into the bright and colorful center of the picture, past the "distractions" of the very detailed large tree and the interesting waterfall.  It's as if I am nearsighted, and I need to get closer to explore the center area, feeling my way past the tree and avoiding the sound and motion of the water, which could easily distract me.  The image challenges me; and I think that's why I keep looking at it. Does it matter whether my feeling about the image was an accident, or the artist's intent to direct my eye and my mind?  

I tried cropping a little more from both sides and liked what I saw. My problem here is the background is out of focus. For me, after the additional cropping, the background is the subject and I want it in focus.

Nancy, I think your comp. goes very well with your title as it gives the impression of peeking around the tree at a private location.  (I expect to see Nymphs and Satyrs at any moment.)  The soft focus on the falls and mid-ground rocks adds to the dreamy impression, although part of me would like to see those sharp.  The fall colors are a great addition.  I see lots to explore photographically, as in less tree (a few steps left, if possible) and/or more dof.  Given what I think you're trying to do, those might not be improvements, but seem well worth exploring.

I like Wayne's commentary on this Nancy. It's always a good idea to experiment.

One alternative approach would have made the tree and FG rocks the primary, in-focus subject with the rest of the scene just there for context and fall color. Possibly by using a less in-between aperture and deliberately blurring the background much more. The same thing (more blurring) could be done in post. As it is I think many nature photographers can get hung up on having everything in focus and it is somehow a "mistake" when it is not. I feel that OOF portions of images can help take photography from craft to art.

This looks like such a beautiful place, and you have captured that here. It's a little confusing to my eye, though, since most of the photo is out of focus. The tree is in focus, but I don't think that's the subject. I don't mind that the waterfall is off to the side, because the rocks look very interesting and the foliage, too, but I'd just like to see them all a little more clearly.