I'm not sure how I feel about this image. I was pretty excited while shooting thinking this would turn out nicely but after some editing I'm not a huge fan. It just seems very flat. I'm not sure if its the harsh lighting (this was shot midday) or the sharpness or what. Any suggestions for improvement?
I like it, but I feel like the bottom quarter of the picture doesn't do much for me. I think it might look better cropped 4x5 and/or maybe shot from a lower angle. I'm not sure, though. My only other thought is that it seems especially dark in the top left corner. I like the lighting, though. the pattern from the light through the clouds on the mountain and the light on the trees are cool.
Thanks David. I agree about the corners a bit dark. I added just a touch of vignette to amplify the framing effect and I think that has more of an effect on the clouds than I’d like.
This is a great view. I feel like the mountain has a very low contrast though, and kind of blends in together with the clouds and water. The midday light doesn't help, but if you add some contrast, it may appear less flat.
I can envisage myself in your place, faced with this beautiful view, and wanting to convey some of that impression to others, Trevor. The mountain is majestic & beautiful, and so are the trees, in their way.
I think you face a fundamental problem in that the frame overpowers the subject, which is seen in low contrast because of atmospheric haze. In itself, this can be part of an appealing landscape, adding to the sense of distance and hence scale (making the mountain seem big, because it seems to be distant, yet is not small in the frame).
The trees, up close, are not obscured by haze at all, and make the mountain look (relatively) insignificant, even puny.
Perhaps an image utilising a wider gap between trees at the edges of a landscape-orientation image, with the mountain occupying most of the width of the image would work better. I realise this may not have been possible.
If this was the only possible shot, I'd sacrifice some of the haze to make the mountain more prominent via contrast, as in the edit below, but I still think the image is compromised. Sometimes - often! - a beautiful scene does not directly translate into a satisfying photo.
The lack of sharpness in the trees doesn't help; since you seem to have stopped down to f/16 already, this could only be helped by focus-stacking.
Overall I think that the photo is a bit too dark and there's too much tree/frame. After all, the subject is the mountain. The lighting on the mountain is nice but not really dramatic enough to make it stand out from the photographic crowd.