Alpine Lake

[LenR]

Captured in soft evening light. An alpine lake with reflections of the dense lodgepole pine forest growing along the lake shore.
C&C welcome.......

Alpine Lake by Len Reeves, on Flickr

[Geoff F]

Nothing wrong with this image, Len, but I find myself looking for a subject. Did you have any others which show the entire trees? Or less of the trees and more of the reflection?

[billtils]

Difficult one to critique, Len. It's kind of stuck in no-man's land, between "needs more oomph" or somehow edit to a softer look; and yes, agree with Geoff's comment.

[DanK]

I'm in the needs more oomph camp. The histogram shows why it looks a little drab.

I didn't do a real edit because I am on a laptop with a poor display, and what I did may have overcooked it. But as a start, here's a version with a simple global increase in contrast using the curves tool (tweaked the black and white points and imposed a mild curve), a stronger increase in contrast for the water (curves tool, black mask, white brush), and a crop:

[Round Tuit]

I like Dan's treatment but I prefer your original crop. As far as I am concerned, the forest is the subject. It and its reflection are interesting enough to keep my attention.

[billtils]

👍 to Dan's edit and Andre's crop preference.

[LenR]

Thank you to Geoff and Bill for their comments.

Dan, thanks for your input, a little overcooked as you suggest but the direction you are suggesting has merit.

Andre, thanks for taking the time to comment. I agree on the crop.

[DanK]

Thank you to Geoff and Bill for their comments.

Dan, thanks for your input, a little overcooked as you suggest but the direction you are suggesting has merit.

Andre, thanks for taking the time to comment. I agree on the crop.

Indeed. I just had a chance to plug in a half decent monitor. You are being charitable by writing "a little" overcooked. My post is WAY overcooked. But you can see what I intended: just punch it up with more contrast, both globally and locally.

BTW, this is the sort of image where I would probably try to unlink contrast and saturation. The greens are getting pretty artificial in my post. If you're working in lightroom, this is simple: just use the slider under the curve to reduce the saturation caused by increasing contrast. In photoshop, it's a little more complicated because it's either on (normal blend) or off (luminosity blend), but you can add two layers, one done each way, and reduce opacity to blend them to taste.

[LenR]

Dan, Thanks for your additional input. Agreed on the point of contrast and saturation, easy to overdo and end up with artificial colours.......

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Len,

I'm with André, the forest is the subject - and I suggest that the reflection is competing with it to the detriment of the composition.

That said, given such a view point, I'd almost certainly frame as you did if shooting the scene myself.

Folks, if you have the ability, view the original image in the LiteBox (i.e. click on image), then drag it down so that 50% of the reflection disappears off the bottom of the screen and see if you agree.

If you do repost, I would suggest adding a bit more 'punch', but perhaps not as much as Dan's qualified laptop effort. For context, I say this when I view on an uncalibrated 27" ASUS monitor, which I consider 'good enough' for my skills!

Hope that helps, Dave

[LenR]

Hi Dave, appreciate you taking the time to add your comments to this thread......

[Manfred M]

I haven't been posting here for a number of months and don't know when I will be back more regularly. Being very busy on other things (home renovations is a big one) plus having pinched some nerves in my neck (very painful with loss of strength and fine motor control in my right arm and hand) means I can't even hold a camera right now, much less operate one Two months of physiotherapy are moving me in the right direction.

There are a lot of good comments here. Yes, the subject is the trees, but there is no centre of interest and the scene is quite busy, so it doesn't quite work. Yes, the reflections are distractions, but are an important part of Len's vision, but is this working (or not)? While I agree with Dan, that the image is quite flat and more contrast is needed (without the increase in saturation).

I find my eyes are drawn to that bright tree on the left side of the image, and fixing that would be a start. The whole scene is quite benign, and suspect that was probably what drew Len into making this image.

[DanK]

Manfred,

Very sorry to hear about your injury. I did wonder why we had been seeing less of you. Best of luck for continued progress with PT. In my experience, it can do wonders, but often frustratingly slowly.

Dan

[LenR]

Manfred, appreciate your taking the time to comment.
Sorry to hear about you injury and hope all will be well in due course.
I am trying to cope with my own medical issues, having been diagnosed with mesothelioma early this year.
Seems there are a few of us on the forum contending with medical issues of one kind or another in our senior years......

[Manfred M]

Manfred, appreciate your taking the time to comment.
Sorry to hear about you injury and hope all will be well in due course.
I am trying to cope with my own medical issues, having been diagnosed with mesothelioma early this year.
Seems there are a few of us on the forum contending with medical issues of one kind or another in our senior years......

That sounds like even less fun than I am having. My problem is due to spinal deterioration due to aging (starts hitting people at around 70, although golfers tend to get it to (I don't golf)) and the first line of treatment is physio and if that does not work, the options become more aggressive up to surgery to fuse the vertebrae in the neck. Something I would prefer to avoid...

Good luck with your treatment.

[Round Tuit]

Manfred, Len,
Sorry to hear about your health problems. I wish both of you the best of luck with your respective ongoing treatments.

[billtils]

Yep, add me to the longish line of aged and infirm - 82 and on chemo but you'd never know by looking at me (or so I'm told ... ). I may have posted this earlier (add less than stellar memory to the list) but I've just sold all my SLR gear and am looking to order an iPhone 17 when they are released next month.

On the upside, at least I no longer suffer from GAS

[DanK]

It's not surprising that many of the folks active on this forum (including me, I'm 76) are older; retirement gives you the time to spend on photography and other things. So, I suspect that a goodly share of us are suffering from age-related maladies of one sort (or numerous sorts, for that matter).

A couple of years ago, I had such severe shoulder pain that I couldn't wave out a car window. The surgeon, of course, sent me for an MRI. I told someone later that when I was younger and was imaged for orthopedic injuries, the answer was usually "your problem is X." Now it's "here are your problems, plural, and here are the ones I think are mostly causing your pain." (In the end, surgery completely restored function, but after 7 months of tedious and sometimes painful physical therapy.)

Particularly at the distance at which we find ourselves, there is little we can do other than commiserate and offer support. However, sometimes we can offer concrete help. For example, I'm still dithering about how to cut the weight of my equipment because of the effects of age, but I found the suggestions on this forum helpful in sorting it out.

Anyway, Len, Manfred, and Bill, I wish you the best in dealing with your current health issues.

Dan

[billtils]

Thanks Dan

[LenR]

Thanks Dan, yes we are a "sorry lot"