Frozen and fragile - a question on saturation

[milosh]

Hey folks,

this was taken on a frosty morning, the Sun was already pretty high (as I've waited for it to come out from clouds) so the light was in reality more daylight coloured than red/orange as you'd expect from a sunrise.

I adjusted white balance, increased saturation and vibrance...

I have two questions, the first one is about the saturation. Some small parts of the photo are blueish (because they are in shade) and I like it that way. Those are primarily the patch of the ground (left, behind the plant), the rightmost frozen flower and that single blueish branch down low. They look naturally blue from being in the shade on my laptop monitor, but they look overly dark, blue/purple on my other monitor.

A note: I usually find the colours and brightness levels on my laptop monitor to be true, and I have already seen colours being off on my new PC monitor. So, I just wanted to check out how do they look to you.


Second question is a more subjective one, regarding subject matter. Do you find the subject (it's state, the frost and the light) interesting enough? I know this is highly subjective, but just tell me your opinion. Would it be a keeper for you?

Exif:

Nikon D60
Nikon 18-105mm @ 98mm
f5.6
1/250
ISO 100



Thanks

[metallion58]

I like the subject very much. Maybe a tad more contrast would make the frost pop out a little, I dunnno.
Nice DOF by the way.

[Doug Sundseth]

I like that sort of subject quite a bit and the color balance looks fine to me.

I'd like the subject to be either more or less complex, though. More complex (a weed with more seed pods and stems, for instance) could give you interesting context and patterns. Less complex would be a bit more pure. I think this is a bit in the middle.

I'd also like to see the rest of the stems that leave the frame at the top and right side of the image. (I've been know to do a bit of judicious pruning for this sort of image; don't tell anyone. )

[flytyer57]

The blue looks blue to me.

Not really something I'd take a picture of, but I guess I need to start thinking out of the box more often.

[Krusty79]

The blues and other colors look fine to me. I would not have known about the frost unless you mentioned it. This is not the type of subject matter I would care to shoot, so I do not find it that interesting myself. I do think that the bare branches above the flowers are distracting, as well as that blueish one on the far right.

[shruggy63]

I like it but I agree that the blue on the foreground plant could be distracting to the perfectionist :-) When I first looked at the picture I did the 'tilting my head thing', to the left. So, in my inexpert opinion, a small clockwise rotation might help the composition? Enough so that the twig exits the frame top-right at a right angle if that makes sense...

[milosh]

Hello everyone, thanks for your replies. I have checked them during the weekend but I didn't have time to reply or try any of your suggestions. I guess the two braches sticking out from the frame could be distracting, but I'm not sure what can be done with them.

Metallion58, I was very careful while adding contrast as I didn't want the background to be too noticable. I'm not really sure how to emphasize the plant without increasing the contrast. I'll try experimenting a bit.

Doug, your comment on the level of complexity got me thinking, I'm going to try and experiment with different crops a bit.

Krusty, I always thought about the small branches as a nice and elegant end of the plant, but I understand that some may perceive them as distracting. I don't really want to clone them out, and cropping would not eliminate them. I'll try to see if a different crop you maybe minimise their focus-grabbing effect.

Shruggy63, I actually thought of the golden/blue combination as one of the interesting bits of this photo, especially on the plant itself. I'll see how it looks rotated a bit to the right.