A Road less Traveled by

[Marie Hass]

One of my favorite poets is Robert Frost. When I took this picture, I saw this path and loved the play of light but the color I could not make right.

So I turned to Kodiak with a request —what can I do with this? I do not want to throw it away. He recommended, if the colors are not an asset to the picture, to put the colors aside and work with the luminosity. So this is a rendition I am pleased with.

Please c&c.

Marie

[Shadowman]

Hi Marie,

Any reason you chose the settings (f/8, ISO 400, 1/80sec) you used? Capture is underexposed for the most part but could be somewhat improved through a bit more editing. I like the composition, nice effort.

[Marie Hass]

Dear John,

There are certainly large parts of this image where less light fell, but my intent was for the viewer to focus on the path and sun-kissed tree limb.

[Shadowman]

Dear John,

There are certainly large parts of this image where less light fell, but my intent was for the viewer to focus on the path and sun-kissed tree limb.

Marie,

Must have been something going on with my connection this morning Forum, image appears much better exposed now.

[AlwaysOnAuto]

Dear John,

There are certainly large parts of this image where less light fell, but my intent was for the viewer to focus on the path and sun-kissed tree limb.

If that is the case, then I would crop the top of the image to get rid of the bright sky. The image looks a lot better to me as I scroll it such that the top isn't there, almost a square format.
Nice shot, but I'd still like to see the colors.

[Wavelength]

A superb image; i really liked it as such; it is not supposed to be a happy image, but a moody one. The light above and dark path below makes a story; the only thing i wanted was a couple to walk on that path-away or towards.....

I too am eager to see it in colors

[xpatUSA]

Marie,

Must have been something going on with my connection this morning Forum, image appears much better exposed now.

Nothing wrong with your connection. When I first looked at the OP, it was as you said - then when I scrolled back, it was "better". I think CiC puts up a quick image on your screen and then loads a fuller one to replace it. This is quite common. I've noticed it on photo-hosting sites and my Sigma raw converter shows the embedded JPEG while it is converting the raw to RGB. My old system and slow satellite connection makes that kind of thing quite noticeable.

[xpatUSA]

Dear John,

There are certainly large parts of this image where less light fell, but my intent was for the viewer to focus on the path and sun-kissed tree limb.

Hello 'Rie,

I tried a simple RGB curve on it. RGB is not strictly luminosity I know, but it had already been converted to black and white.



The tree and path are now apparently brighter than the sky, due to local contrast I think, so I left the sky in at top left.

What do you think? Is this what you were looking for?

The application is FastStone Viewer but they can all do that anyways . . .

[Shadowman]

Nothing wrong with your connection. When I first looked at the OP, it was as you said - then when I scrolled back, it was "better". I think CiC puts up a quick image on your screen and then loads a fuller one to replace it. This is quite common. I've noticed it on photo-hosting sites and my Sigma raw converter shows the embedded JPEG while it is converting the raw to RGB. My old system and slow satellite connection makes that kind of thing quite noticeable.

Ted,

Thanks for the info.

[bnnrcn]

Hi Marie Very nice composition and I prefer your dark edit as the image has a mood this way. I would crop the sky though.

[Marie Hass]

Please forgive me. I will respond to all in the next few days. I just came back from putting my old lady dog to sleep. She took a nose dive health wise over this past week and today she told me it was time....

I am bereft.

'Rie

[Aeros]

Please forgive me. I will respond to all in the next few days. I just came back from putting my old lady dog to sleep. She took a nose dive health wise over this past week and today she told me it was time....

I am bereft.

'Rie

Yeh, it takes the joy out of your life for a while.

[JBW]

I firmly believe that 'Art' is the effort to express the world in a way that allows us to see the world in a new way. Removing colours, adding this or that, creating what your spirit saw is a good thing. I like the shot but more importantly your spirit likes it. Time for coffee.

[Manfred M]

Sorry to hear about your dog, it sounds like it was not unexpected, but none the less a shock.

As for the image, I'm afraid I find it very much too dark and muddy looking. Something that was drilled into my head many years ago in the B&W darkroom is that every B&W image must have a white point and a black point; i.e. and area of pure white and and and area of pure black. In modern RGB terms, that means values of around (15, 15, 15) for the black (which you have, in fact you appear to have areas where you've blown out the black values) and pure whites (240, 240, 240). There are definitely none of those, so this puts me into the camp that suggests that the image is significantly underexposed. I would also crop out the highlights in the top left corner, as they draw your eyes out of the image and don't add anything to it.

As for Kodiak's suggestion of getting rid of colours if they are not an asset to the image; I would have to agree with him on that front, but would suggest you think about what that means.

I'd probably head more into this type of direction.

[JBW]

Please forgive me. I will respond to all in the next few days. I just came back from putting my old lady dog to sleep. She took a nose dive health wise over this past week and today she told me it was time....

I am bereft.

'Rie

Condolences.

[Marie Hass]

Okey. For those who asked, here is the color version.

Marie

[Marie Hass]

Dear Brian,

Thank you for recognizing my artistic freedom in your comment.

Thank you also for your kind condolences. Cheyanne was my constant companion. Together, she and I walked the path I show in my scene.

Marie

[ST1]

Sorry about the loss of your best friend Marie. Please forgive me if I'm going against the flow but...I have to say I much prefer the colour version but cropped to loose the bright sky. Of the three B/W versions I prefer Manfred's processing.

[flashback]

Hi Marie,
First, sorry to hear about your Cheyanne. I know how much (and how quickly) they become a constant and important part of the family. Maybe at some point you will post some pics of her.

Secondly, I am a bit of an outlier, I prefer your first image over Manfred's but I think it could be lightened up some, maybe lift the midtones just a bit. And along the same Robert Frost theme I suspect there are any number of other angles you could shoot that scene from.

[Downrigger]

So sorry for your loss, Marie. Very sorry.
Like your (first version) just fine.