Snow Drift

Lovely! A terrific sense of uncluttered natural beauty. The fenceline is elegant in this. I would consider only less vignette in right corner. Wonderful photo.

Beautifully simple and moody photograph, I love it. You might try a slight crop on top and bottom for more of a panoramic feel, given the subject matter. Well done!

Frankly, this is such a compelling shot, that I did not even notice the speckled hillside until you pointed it out. My eye, immediately, follows the fenceline to the tree. To me, the more fence, the better.

I do think, it would be interesting to see a pano crop, as suggested by Thomas.

Brian, Great shot. Love the fence line. The speckled hill does take away from the clean feeling. Yet I feel if you hadn't asked It wouldn't bother me.

Ooh, I like this a lot Brian. Very graphic with wonderful tones.

Brian,

This fabulous! Great eye - a scene I think so many of use would love to photograph. (I don't live near snow, so I guess that's out...)
I too did not notice the bg speckles and don't think it's a distraction. I think it helps provide a little context and depth, so I think it's fine. I might agree with some crop option; mostly from the top because the gray sky isn't adding much, the story is about the tree and fence, lines, isolation, etc. I'm not sure I would crop up from the bottom and make at any tighter to the fence, unless you actually crop in to the fence. Lots of options, but his works beautifully as presented.

Lon

This is a great, minimalist view. Because of that, I would clone out that speckled hill and I work hard at keeping my cloning to a minimum. It might be worth looking at a version that crops some from the bottom and from the right to see how that feels. I think it would increase the sense of movement even more but can't be sure that it's an improvement with only my fingers and sliding the window around as tools.

Beautiful and minimal...very well done!!

Don't mention the speckled hillside and nobody will notice it :) Wonderful graphics and composition.

Thanks for all the great feedback. Here's a new cropped version of the shot. I like it better and it definitely puts the emphasis on the tree and fence line.

Excellent!!! Wonderful minimalism. The second version looks more cloned that cropped, but why split hairs? I like this a lot.

The second version nails it! What a lovely scene you captured. I like this image a lot!
Having said that, you might consider using Levels to brighten it up just a hair. Moving the right slider in to the left just a bit to meet the first bits of data makes this sing, IMO.
Nevertheless, you did a fantastic job here!

Love your repost Brian. The minimalistic scene and B&W work well here.

I love the simpleness of this photo, Brian! The curving fence makes a great leading line up to the frosted trees. Your repost is excellent.

Much appreciated feedback! I am much happier with this image with these recommended edits. Here is the shot with a slight levels adjustments to adjust the white point.

A great shot here, Brian. I love this comp and the wonderful feel. Your repost really does the job for me!

Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, WI

Cool and very beautiful I have one or two of these fence lines going to single trees in the snow and they have a lovely stark simplicity too them that works with all manner of crops. I like a square crop in this scene very much from the gap in the fence to the right edge. It centralises the tree but that is not much of an issue for a square crop.

The repost is a much better version of an already powerful shot.
Grt, Ingrid.