I am trying to do more work with long exposure. This was I believe my first real success at getting a long exposure with water in it. I tried to draw the eye in post through the photo by lightening up the water and snow on the banks of the river. It ends up bringing your eye to the sunset.
I am also practicing with blending exposures. So, I had one exposure for the sky and one for the foreground.
IN POST:
I blended the two exposures, dodged/burned, adjusted exposure and saturation, I added clarity to the foreground for details in the snow (didn't want more clarity in the trees else I felt it would distract from the best parts of the photo), added contrast and adjusted curves slightly, and then I split toned to adjust the blues and oranges.
I would love your critique and thoughts on how you would make it better, or a critique on what you felt worked well in the image. Thanks!
I like it, but I feel the trees and foliage on the left and right banks of the river are just too dark. I don't need to see the details of the forest, but I would prefer to not see the large black voids. The snow and water, on the other hand, is very nice.
I replied to Shawn's comment, and it applies to your as well. Thank you for the feedback.
I adjusted it with your feedback into consideration. Here is what I came up with.
Yep. I like that better.
Looks great! With 5 exposures you have a lot of room to play. It doesn’t look over done at all.
I would echo Phillip. The trees are pretty dark. I like the area on the left of the picture that has some rock detail showing through. Overall, it is a pretty serene feeling. I like the gradient of the sky. It definitely looks cold!
I'm gonna see about tweaking it to see how it looks. My concern about getting more exposure on the sides of the picture is two fold: 1) I am worried about it looking too HDRish because of the late time of day. It may look too odd or out of place with there too much exposure in the darker sides. 2) I am trying to remember what the RAW file looked like. I did a 5 exposure bracket. I believe it was so late after sunset that most of the tree area on the right and left may have been too dark for much detail.
I'm gonna try yours and Phillip's suggestions, and see how it looks.
Thank you for the feedback, by the way!
I adjusted it and took your suggestions into consideration.