Carolina Morning

I had to run out of my house this morning, leaving eggs on the stove, to catch the light before it changed. I had enough time to meter and get one exposure. It is a nice change from all the snow we had last week.

Hello Bob,

has the snow melted? Or is this just a respite from the cold back at your place ?

Thanks for sharing your part of the world with us.

Bob Rogers said:

I had to run out of my house this morning, leaving eggs on the stove, to catch the light before it changed. I had enough time to meter and get one exposure. It is a nice change from all the snow we had last week.

Click to expand...

Hi Bob,

This composition took me as "odd" in my first glances. After all, we don't see the entire main tree and then there's a lot of space to the left that's empty! So I was troubled.

However, there's more to the composition! I discovered the horizontal branch coming to the left that has an important and dramatic action that functions to balance the picture. This surprised me and makes it oddly interesting. So I'll be returning to the picture and see how it wears with passage of time.

Since this scene is nearby and within the cooling time of your food, you are fortunate to be able to revisit the scene many times over. Is that something you might consider. If so, then here's some thoughts. Seeing this strength to the picture coming from this horizontal branch, I'd celebrate it more by dropping down so that we'd see sky behind it and the picture could very well get added impact. Still, I also feel that this scene is to harshly cropped. I am avidly against the oft quote aphorism to frame tight and crop even closer. Today, we can come home with more treasures than we might even realize exist at the site and refining composition has far more dimensions of opportunity. Looking at a wider scene night add even more powerful possibilities.

Asher

I opened the picture up by opening the green channel in luminosity mode. And, I added a slight cyanish tinge, using a gradient to have the original grayscale at the bottom.

No reason as to why I made the changes, other than intuition.

Fahim: The snow has melted. Another storm is on the way, but I believe it will bring only rain.

Asher: Thanks! I'll try what you suggest this weekend. My initial exposure was from a further distance to take in the whole tree, but there is another smaller tree in the foreground that was distracting, so I moved closer to get it out of the frame (no zoom lens on the camera at that moment).

Kevin: I like your changes too. I probably wouldn't have tried something like that, because the light I saw (yesterday morning) was so yellow and soft.

Bob
hello and so nice to meet another from the South
and being from the South I understand what these "light" mornings are
they are incredible and beautiful and so was your catch
I really like the shot really liked it
it has that Southern charm and ambiance. great job
I do believe that the shot should have included more of the tree as well
all and all really good start
I will be looking for more of your work-

Charlotte-

Well, I revisited our tree several times this weekend. Although I was out at the same time on several mornings, the light was not the same. The best shot I got was in the evening. It's totally different in character. You can see a lot more detail in the tree, especially the fruit (because the light was coming from the front). It is more difficult to see the broken trunk on the left in this view, and more difficult to see the trunk in general.

I took Asher's framing advice, by including the whole tree in the image, and also putting that odd branch against the sky.

In addition to those changes, I removed a pine tree on the right.

Bob Rogers said:

Well, I revisited our tree several times this weekend. Although I was out at the same time on several mornings, the light was not the same. The best shot I got was in the evening. It's totally different in character. You can see a lot more detail in the tree, especially the fruit (because the light was coming from the front). It is more difficult to see the broken trunk on the left in this view, and more difficult to see the trunk in general.

I took Asher's framing advice, by including the whole tree in the image, and also putting that odd branch against the sky.

In addition to those changes, I removed a pine tree on the right.

Bob Rogers
Garden Tree​

Click to expand...

Bob,

Thanks for following through and remaking the picture. It's a worthy project. I like this picture now as the tree is now more powerful in its environment. It would be great to see you follow this with further images, perhaps using a red filter for the sky and shooting in the rain or early in the mornng when mist is rising. Also perhaps dropping close to the ground and shooting up.

Good job!

Asher

Bob Rogers said:

I had to run out of my house this morning, leaving eggs on the stove, to catch the light before it changed. I had enough time to meter and get one exposure. It is a nice change from all the snow we had last week.

Click to expand...

Bob / Asher,

thanks for bringing this image back up - i find it tender – melancholic – the air is thick - reminds me of pictorialism .. the later images don’t give me the space that i get from this ...

cheers

I agree with Mark. The image is full of a romantic melancholy and perhaps very Scottish in flavour? I liked it and the soft morning light it succesfully evokes.

Mike