Forest of Fantasies

[Arlen]

Encountered and imagined on a recent island visit.

As always, comments of whatever sort strike your fancy are welcome and appreciated.




(Really needs to be viewed larger by clicking image)

[Donald]

Yep, that's good one.

I had written -
One question/suggestion - Would it work if it was cropped to square (1:1) retaining the existing right hand side, top and bottom? That would put the trunk of the tree on the right vertical third line. I agree that that would lose the sky and the foliage out on the left that does contribute to the fantasy idea. Just a thought to ponder.

But before pressing the 'submit' button, I've been looking at it again and I think I'm wrong. It's better as it is. The fact is that it's over on the left that the scene opens out and not only do we see the sky, but at the bottom we see that rock outcrop and the land going away behind .... to other mysterious places.

So, I found it does require some study to appreciate all that is in this image. But it does reward that. It's a beauty

[Arlen]

So, I found it does require some study to appreciate all that is in this image.

Yes, I think this is an image that one might glance at and pass by without much engagement, unless time is spent in examining it. Thanks for taking the time to do that, and providing thoughtful feedback.

I agree that determining the best crop is a challenge. Virtually everything of interest here was on the left side of the trunk, so of necessity it was placed to the right in the original capture. I have experimented with many crops, and the one you see has significant portions of the left and top removed. A bit more could be taken off the left side, but any more than that would remove the suggestion of the open sky, and too much of those wonderful branches with their twisting shapes that echo and reinforce one another in their directions and positions. It was the branches that really appealed to me, and the blending of leaves (bright yellow in reality) and background evoked an air of mystery (fantasy?). But I'm sure much of that is in the eye of the beholder.

[Sunray]

The longer I look at the picture the better it gets. Great composition. Did you find the white dragon out there?

@everyone: Look at the picture the lightbox. It's nearly too small in the post to take effect.

cu
Robert

[Mike Buckley]

Agreed that this image is not at all appreciated until viewing the larger size.

It was the branches that really appealed to me, and the blending of leaves (bright yellow in reality) and background evoked an air of mystery (fantasy?). But I'm sure much of that is in the eye of the beholder.

I hope it is helpful to you to learn that that was exactly my impression. Very nice job. Definitely a keeper!

[Quinn]

Very Very nice!
Much more to see than is first evident. Id love to see the post process!
Phil

[Arlen]

Thanks very much to all of you for your kind words. And Mike, yes that is very helpful to learn; I wasn't sure whether anyone would "get" my interpretation or not.

[Arlen]

Philip, I meant to come back shortly and address your question about post-processing, but "shortly" has turned out to be longer than I thought. In a nutshell, it was all done in Lightroom 4. For the conversion to B&W, I desaturated all colors in the HSL panel, and then adjusted the luminosity of each color until I got the tonality that I liked. This is just one way to do the conversion, and I often experiment with other approaches. You might want to watch a video by George Jardin, in which he provides interesting thoughts about the various approaches. The link is here: http://mulita.com/blog/?p=1244. Finally, to give the image something of a "dreamy" quality, I applied a bit of negative Clarity in LR. This is something that works on some images, but not on others. I liked its effect here.

[Quinn]

Thanks for getting back to me Arlen. I'll check out the link right away !
Philip