composition and exposure cc

[SeJun]

Taken on Mt. Rainier, Washington at mid day...




EOS 50D
17-40mm @ 17mm
shutter speed @ 1/50 (0.02 sec)
f16
iso 100

[Lightwriter]

Nice shot. Your exposure looks fine to me. As far as composition goes you have a beautiful scene but I'm not really sure what to say about it. I feel like the trees are detracting from the mountains and the mountains are detracting from the trees. Maybe I would like it more if you had used a smaller f/number to isolate the trees and keep just enough definition in the mountain to give context. Sorry. I wish I had more to offer you.

[Krusty79]

You have the foreground and background both occupying the lower 1/3 of the shot, so they kind of merge together. If you were able to take the shot with the mountains taking up 2/3 of the shot, then I would like the composition a lot better.

[SeJun]

Thank you both for your replies.. You both caught something that I knew but didn't really see it until pointed out... I should have tried to avoid layering the shrubs, trees, and the mountains in the lower 1/3 by changing the angle or something... so the layering takes up more of the photo instead just directly one over the other.. Or could have used shallower DOF... Thank you again!

[LeeR]

This is actually well composed; strong base at the bottom with something growing up and out of it, however, I am not sure about your choice of subject. As a rule, dead trees do not inspire the same thoughts of beauty and granduer that the mountains in the distance do. Remember that when you combine two elements like this in the same frame the two are going to interact. Beautiful trees against distant mountains would have worked, as would dead trees against a bleak landscape, but I'm afraid these two elements are saying two different things, leaving us a bit confused about what you are trying to suggest.

[SeJun]

LeeR, very interesting. Living vs. Dead. hmm... I thought the clean lines of the dead trunks and dead branches of the trees were complimenting the snow covered peaks and the clean lines of the distant snow covered mountains. Clean lines of downward branches/limbs without leaves complimenting the clean, downward slopes of rocks and snow and ice covered mountain ridges. But I do see your point as well. Very interesting indeed. Thank for your thoughts!

[Aleix]

Nice shot! Because of the time of the day when you took the shot, I find the colour temperature could perhaps be slightly adjusted, warming the picture colours a bit. Unless of course, you want it to look so "cold".

Greetings