Serenityby
lykofosComment by Azrifel: ~~~~Critique Club Comment~~~~
Composition (content)
I like the composition of this. The right line of the pebbles, the left line of the hill and the lines of the river seem to take the eye around the corner. The balance of pebbles on one side and water on the other side is nice too and the good thing is that that the break between that starts in the right corner.
The amount of sky above the hill and the big tree on the left bank is good. A tighter crop would harm the scenic view I think.
I like how the lower reflection is a kind of miniature mirror of the sky.
If it wasn't for the very bright sky (a lack of dynamic range of digital camera's, I run into these problems with both my camera's as well, especially natural dark greens and blacks vs bright skies) you would have succeeded in bringing your message of serenity. I find it a bit too hard on the eye really come to rest. Perhaps that a polarizer filter(I don't think the A40 can take one) could do something about the haze and perhaps a bit about the sky, but I still have got to test that myself.
The natural emptyness and balance of this is very nice.
The twigs in front add a sense of size, it is easier to judge the size of the pebbles and enhance the already rich depth. I personally wouldn't crop that out, altough many might not agree.
One thing, it has been mentioned a lot in the other comments, the horizon isn't straight. When you have photoshop, you could use the ruler to draw the line of the horizon and go to rotation, arbitrary to get it straight really easy.
Background
I am somewhat amazed to see how well the F2.8 aperture worked here. A smaller aperture (higher F) would have given more sharpness (in focus) at the central tree and beyond. I have no other ideas about the sky, except for layering different exposures, but that is illegal for dpchallenge.
Camera Work (Technical)
Keep it level. :)
The exposure of the rest of the scene is good. A longer exposure / wider aperture would have caused an even more blown out sky and shorter would have lost too much detail in the shadows, with darker greens.
Focus and sharpness are good.
Digital Processing (technical)
One thing that seems to enhance the exposure of the foreground without further worsening the sky is too set the input levels of the middle slider in 'levels' to 1.15.
It also looks very nice in black and white after channel mixing the monochromes to R40 G30 and B30 (before this I had set the levels as above). It seems to neutralize the sky.
Judged on the pebbles the sharpness is good.
The image could be saved at a higher jpeg quality setting, you still have room for 30kb. The advantage of a higher quality setting is that it preserves detail sharpness, color consistency etc. There is nothing wrong here however, just something to keep in mind.
My opinion
The bright sky spoils what could be a very pleasing image.
Photographer found comment helpful.
