Lighted path

[Dave A]

I'm not sold on this image although I do like it. I've seen similar images posted and they often seem too cluttered with so much small detail....mine too.
Sometimes it's hard to capture the true feeling of the moment as remembered. More practice I tell myself.

Dave

[Tronhard]

Hi Dave:

I have been looking and looking at this trying to decide what it was I wanted to change, and I think that for me the issue is that the canopy covers too much of the image vertical dimension. I have a feeling of wanting to duck my head if I enter the image. Now that doesn't mean I would have liked less canopy, but maybe more foreground - depending on what that was...

My other question is what the inspiration was for you in this image. I am guessing it is the play of light along the path, framed by the trees. For me there are a lot of trees and while there is more tree coverage on the left, the two trees on the right hold more potential. Perhaps I might have taken the photo standing on the left side of the path, with the line of the path about 1/3 from the left and the trees on the right dominating the remainder of the image. Still, without being there and seeing what you saw this is purely conjecture.

[RobFellows]

if you haven't already done so, open the shadows and bring down the highlights. Darken the whole image lightly and then paint some exposure back in to the path ( assuming that's the intended subject?)

[pnodrog]

I always tend go too far when I try and see what I would do with someone else's puzzling photograph. Trev said reduce the canopy a bit and I agree. The path appeared out of level so I have rotated and cropped the image a bit. There were some bright reflective leaves in the lower left corner that were a bit distracting and also brighter foliage about 70% up near the right edge so these have either been cropped or been burned with highlights set. The scene would have been fairly high contrast and I felt for this image it needed to be restored. I did this by burning with the shadows option selected. Usually I find this type of scene much easier to manage and successful on cloudy days but you have handled it well. In this one I wanted to emphasis the light at the end of the tunnel.

As I said when having a quick play I tend to go to far. When I do this type of adjustment in less of a rush I copy the image to another layer, work on that and then adjust the layer's transparency or use masks to get a more subtle and satisfying result. However below is one possible direction you could take. (Well I don't think I am sending you up the garden path...)

[Geoff F]

To my way of thinking, Dave, you need the viewer to be interested in what is at the end of the path and not be put off by a 'heavy' foreground, including the top of the 'arch'. So I would think about a slight crop from the top and left side. The foreground area of path I would probably leave as it is now.

Then a few tweaks to the brightness levels as previously mentioned.

[Wavelength]

Lovely path....

[IzzieK]

+1 to Geoff's suggestion but I still feel as Trev do that I feel like a dwarf going through that path...perhaps I should think differently so I'd feel better....

[NorthernFocus]

...Sometimes it's hard to capture the true feeling of the moment as remembered. More practice I tell myself...

One benefit of practice is learning how much your mind filters what the camera captures. And how much your emotional state influences what/how you see. The camera is impersonal. It simply records the light for that split second in time.

Having walked places like this before, I can imagine how lovely it seemed at the time. But as a viewer, this image doesn't express that emotion. In situations like this, I find it useful to consider a scene and pause to think about it. What is it exactly that is causing me to feel so strongly about the scene before my eyes at this moment in time that makes me want to share it by capturing an image. Sometimes the answer that I come up with is beyond my capabilities as a photographer to capture. When I look at this scene, I suspect that's the answer I'd have come up with. For that reason, I don't have any technical suggestions on how to improve the image. Not all of the emotional moments in life translate to digital imagery. We just have to capture it in our mind. Maybe this is just one of them.

[Dave A]

Interesting comment Dan and I would have to agree.

Dave

[Mike Buckley]

Great discussion!

When photographing a canopy, one method is to get close to the ground perhaps with a short focal length and perhaps to shoot upward depending of course on the situation. Using the low vantage point emphasizes the sense of being enveloped overhead by the canopy. When shooting upward with a short focal length and not using a lens with built-in perspective control, the perspective distortion can be fixed, if desired, during post-processing assuming the captured composition leaves enough room to do so. That's how I made the second photo displayed in this thread.

[Dave A]

I remember that image Mike, the perspective is pleasing to say the least and works well.

Dave

[IzzieK]

Thanks for the reminder, Mike...I will stick a note on my forehead next time I see a canopied scenery...I'm thinking of September 23 this year if not earlier in the city.