I've learned so much from you all over the years. My landscapes are improving, but not quite where I would like them as yet. Your comments or critiques both appreciated.

Rob

1. Near Keene, NY

Personally, I think the most important aspect of landscape photography is the time of day you choose to shoot. While I understand the fact that photography for most people occurs as you're doing other things (hiking in this instance), in order to get those 'amazing shots' you have to be focused on going out to shoot, and that means early mornings, late afternoons, and sometimes inclement weather.

That being said, I think your shots are very nice, and I particularly think the bottom image has some potential with the correct manipulation. I don't get as much detail out of the image as I would like. Try increasing the contrast and adjusting the levels to bring out the barn from the background/foreground.

Another piece of advice is try and pick out a point of interest in your scene and incorporate accordingly. In your first image, I don't get anything that captures my attention. It looks like any random scene off to the side of a trail. If you would have captured the trail itself or a bridge or some other point of interest, this could have had potential.

The second image is crisp and rich in color, however, it doesn't do much for me as it is lacking a sense of the overall trail or forest.

The third shot is just too bright for my liking; try dropping the levels and bumping the contrast.

Finally, it looks like you are shooting with a wide angle, my guess would be a tokina 12-24?

I personally prefer wide angle images where you are close to the ground and can still view the sky. Try getting low next time you are shooting a closed in scene like your forest shot from above.

These images make me miss upstate NY. As someone who grew up spending weekends in Schroon Lake, this brings me back to my childhood.

Excellent advice on the images.

I couldn't agree more about the time of day aspect of Landscape shooting.

You are correct on the Tokina 12-24 on a 1.6 crop.

Thank you.

1 for me is very strong technically - focus, depth, processing but lacks in composition. The horizon is too close to 50/50 which makes the picture look static and it needs more foreground interest (by either getting lower, including a bush or horizon at 2/3). The composition would also be stronger if you had some feature (stream, trees, etc) pointing into the background.

2 for me is also technically strong but weak in composition. The big lines of the rock point out of the picture. I think it needs more bush behind to stop the lines leading out.

3 is my favorite of the 4. The composition is the best. Still for me, less base of the rock to bring the horizon to 1/3 and landscape with negative space would be better but sometimes I get lost in my taste over others taste. Nice picture

4 for me the composition could be stronger. Moving closer to the barn so that it fills more of the foreground or horizon at 2/3 or more grass in front and lower would make it much stronger.

I agree with post above that time of day could be better but disagree that this is the most important. For me composition is more important.

Thanks for sharing. Scott