An excellent story teller....
I may suggest instead of two dead roots, could have only one, to focus upon as the central theme
Plenty of contrast; the light areas are light but not over exposed and the shadows are a clear black, not muddy looking.
Like Nandakumar, I'm also not over keen on the foreground subjects, particularly the right side root, but they are well focused.
Nandakumar,Geoff,thanks for comments ,much appreciated....
I agree with the right stump being too much. My eye wants to go right to it. Sometimes less is more. otherwise a nice first try. Keep it up. it will help with your color shoots too.
Sometimes, angle of view makes all the difference. You could have changed the dynamics of this image just by getting a bit lower, would've increased the dynamics of the brush, minimized the impact of the background. Nice effort, you've got layers going for you with this composition, just needs a bit of zing to reduce the calmness. Would you see your vision as one of life and death or growth and ....