Ben, You have an undeniable talent for presenting high (technical) quality boring compositions. This is a fine example. Not even the color is interesting IMO. The FG at the bottom is particullarly bad (void of interest). IMO you should have made the aspen trunks your subject.
Hi Sadja. How do I respond without sounding defensive?
First this is one of the best aspen stands I have seen and I live in prime aspen country. The trees are at prime. Many I saw this day were past, but not these.
Second, trees almost always grow out of the ground, so unless you cut them off there will be ground.
I admit the sky is less interesting but at least it has some features.
As far as composition, I did not center it. But I can't find a rule of thirds to apply to this subject.
I am beginning to think I am never going to do a landscape that is not boring because we have seen too many and without a blazing sky or some uniqueness it will be boring. But at least most landscapes are beautiful as you must admit this scene is.
I don't want to quit getting honest replies, but this has become a trial for me because I am not getting a clue about what I need to do.
I look at all the other images posted on line. Many of mine are as beautiful to my eyes as others. But it seems beauty is boring and I don't do ugly.
RustyBug wrote:
Took a stab at it ... I think I like Barbara's version better @ color rendering so far.
Thanks Kent.That is a nice rendering, as are most of the orang leaf versions.
It seems that many want that orange color that occurs in aspen the morning after first frost. It usually colors the tops of one or two trees for one day and then they go yellow.You can see it in this stand. It seldom happens broadly to whole stands at once.
The next stages is a bright yellow as most of this stand is, and they stay that way for 1-3 days, then the yellow dulls and leaves begin to fall so that the trees are not as full. Then they usually just fall off all at once, wind or rain do the job. It can go from prime to bare in a week.
I parked my truck and had about 4-5 separate stands around me. I took pictures of them all and was planning to show them, but probably not because this was the most prime spot although other stands had better sky's or more foreground interest.
I agree with some of the comments that state this may be missing a central subject. You've capture some real punchy color in those leaves--to the point that I would almost tone them down just a bit. I've had similar problem when trying to capture fall foliage. The trees look great but sometimes you can't find something for the viewer to latch onto in the shot. I try to explain this to my wife every time she thinks I should take a picture of a colorful tree.
russdenney01 wrote:
I agree with some of the comments that state this may be missing a central subject. You've capture some real punchy color in those leaves--to the point that I would almost tone them down just a bit. I've had similar problem when trying to capture fall foliage. The trees look great but sometimes you can't find something for the viewer to latch onto in the shot. I try to explain this to my wife every time she thinks I should take a picture of a colorful tree.
I agree. What often looks great in real life and full size, more than often looks boring when reduced to the size of a computer screen. My wife often says to take a photo of a group or field of flowers because it looks so beautiful. I agree with her and say it does indeed look beautiful, but I don't see it making a great photo.
The fall colours in the shot do look beautiful, but the overall composition is just plain boring and commonplace.
Sorry, but no photographer can duplicate the real-life beauty of Nature. Nature is just too large and three-dimensional to replicate in small two-dimension format.
