The elder

I love the ethereal mood here Serban. I think this would be much stronger cropped 4X5 without the distracting foreground elements. The snowy tree in the misty atmosphere is very strong on its own. Beautiful work.

I love the misty atmosphere around the tree, but I would eliminate the foreground distractions through a cropping and/or cloning.

Great misty mood here, Serban. The image seems a little warm to me for a snow scene. I might try a slightly cooler white balance.

Lori

Killer shot!!! I love it!

I would clone out the two very small, farthest left distractions as icing on the cake. I'd prob leave the three bigger rocks.

I really like this Serban. Soft, understated, gorgeous. I would remove whatever that is on the horizon on extreme left.

Thanks all for your input.
Eva, good idea, but for a 4x5 crop I would've need to go a little bit wider on the left, because I want the frame to "breathe". Now I regret that I didn't shot more frames with this one.
Yes, I definitely need to clean up the small, distracting elements. As for the rocks, I think they lead nicely the viewer to the tree, they sustain the composition.
The reason I choose sometimes to warm a little bit a snow scene is that I want the viewer to feel a little bit empathy with the subject in it, here the tree - "the elder" and so it doesn't see the tree as just another piece of the nature, but as something that it has a life too. I feel that here the cold tones are putting immediately a distance between the viewer and the subject, as it's not a dramatic scene but a serene one. The winter has a part in the life of the tree too, sometimes a beautiful one for us to see.
The scene is a little bit darker for a typical snow scene, but that's intended to enforce what I wanted above, probably for a print I would brighten up and desaturate a little the scene.

A wonderful and expressive composition, Serban! I especially appreciate the delicate details of the twigs and how you placed the rocks as a counterpoint. I understand the meaning of the warmer tones well, it works for me. The distracting elements at the left border have already been mentioned, I think it is only a small matter to eliminate them. Thanks for sharing!

Peter

I think this is quite nice as presented. For me, the FG don't distract at all, they just add a little depth to the scene. The only thing I would clone is the furtherest left center black spot.

Partially I don't present all my ideas behind because I want to see how other people see the images and because... sometimes I'm lazy to write more But some may see things differently, so you can get interesting ideas.

Agree with Floris. Simplifying this would make it even better.

I have to say that I love the mood here. Makes me wish I was standing there in this now. That said since there is not a lot of interest in the FG I would say it's better without the dark pieces of rock poking out.

Lovely. Agree I'd leave the 2 tocks on the left but the one on right is closer to the tree so distracts the eye.


lucy