Erin Lamb
March 2025 - Arnold Arboretum
Original
About the Image(s)
I had gone to The Arnold Arboretum after a fresh snowfall looking for a good tree image for a competition. This tree was the most isolated for my purpose.
The shot was taken at 1/40 sec at f22 (aperture priority), ISO 1000 (auto) exp +.7 EV
It was not taken in B&W but given the day and light, it was nearly so and I converted it to add to my B&W images for another competition.
I increased the contrast by 67, opened the shadows by 66, increased the blacks by 89 and the texture by 33 after denoising in Ps.
My questions are: should it be cropped more for impact, is the contrast enough?
I cropped the original quite a bit and tried to dodge the black area in the upper left corner but wonder if it's still too distracting.
This round’s discussion is now closed!
5 comments posted
Erin,
I like your crop and the image itself. It is a complex visual image but still holds together because of the tree structure. I think this image would lend itself to making it high contrast (see attached for a possibility). Posted: 03/08/2025 11:11:41
I like your crop and the image itself. It is a complex visual image but still holds together because of the tree structure. I think this image would lend itself to making it high contrast (see attached for a possibility). Posted: 03/08/2025 11:11:41
Diana Edelman
Erin,
You have chosen a difficult image to capture well. The original shows more of the horizontal branches of the tree on the right, but from your angle, and probably any angle, you could not do the same on the left because of the interference of the neighboring tree. You made the best of your restricted situation by cropping, but in having to do so, you have lost some of the tree's natural shape the drew your eye in the first place. The loss of the darker contrast in the background in the original leaves a lot of small branches that add busyness to the photo, in spite of the lovely soft snow. Dean's version provides better contrast overall I think. Try cropping more off the top and see if you like it. Posted: 03/10/2025 20:46:10
You have chosen a difficult image to capture well. The original shows more of the horizontal branches of the tree on the right, but from your angle, and probably any angle, you could not do the same on the left because of the interference of the neighboring tree. You made the best of your restricted situation by cropping, but in having to do so, you have lost some of the tree's natural shape the drew your eye in the first place. The loss of the darker contrast in the background in the original leaves a lot of small branches that add busyness to the photo, in spite of the lovely soft snow. Dean's version provides better contrast overall I think. Try cropping more off the top and see if you like it. Posted: 03/10/2025 20:46:10
Erin Lamb
Thank you both for your comments.The etra contrast does help, Dean, but I think you're both right about the busyness. I think I tried too hard to find a subject for a particular competition. Posted: 03/11/2025 15:38:59
Erin, I think your crop if fine. I like Dean's suggestion of more contrast. There are lots of filters in Nik Silver Effects Pro for B&W that you could run it through, and see if you like any of those treatments. That's a lot of snow! Posted: 03/15/2025 14:02:09
Erin Lamb
Good suggestion, Rita. I'll give it a try. Thanks! Posted: 03/16/2025 08:59:41