Prelude to a Stormby
QikiComment by spiritualspatula: Hello from the Critique Club!
Initial impression from this shot is the stark contrast between the green of the tree and the brownish yellow of the grass. This makes the tree pop from the foreground well. I think the use of
a polarizer was wise, because the dark blue where the sky is present is a nice addition. The color and saturation of the entire scene is great, but I might have considered lightening the dark areas of the tree a bit, myself. You did a nice job of capturing the varying amounts of light, and the clouds have a
nice amount of contrast to them. There is a small area in clouds, upper left, that looks a bit overexposed, but it is rather insignificant. Several comments allude to your tree being cropped, but on a closer look, it appears that you included the entire tree that is your subject, and that it is background trees that look cropped. That is somewhat distracting, not only because it looks cropped, but also because your subject doesn\'t separate from the background. I assume this only happened because of the spacing of the trees, since you carefully included
the entire tree otherwise. I like the choice of your subject- the way it sprawls along the ground is interesting. Your score may have suffered a bit for the thicker borders, given the increasing displeasure with borders lately. My opinion is that it is a bit thick, but not overwhelmingly so. Lastly, I would associate the title you chose with more ominous cloud cover. This looks like it might be the front part of a warm front, and thus a storm would be somewhat nearby, but your title choice makes me think of more imminent changes.
Personally, I like this image a good deal, and would have assumed a bit higher score than the end result.
Photographer found comment helpful.
