Twists and Turns

The soft side lighting works beautifully here as it brings out the details and textures of these gnarly trees, Preston. I particularly like that strip of light on the FG grasses. It is chaotic; as you mentioned; but it works nicely IMO. Great eye to spot this scene.

Ed

It is pretty chaotic. You could add a bit of order by cropping below the arch but there is a wonderful burst of small branches within that's pretty cool. I agree that the gentle light helps this image considerably. I think the sky portion of the image would make a decent abstract on its own.

Making sense of scenes like this is very difficult for me.  I'm glad there are folks out there that can do it well.  It's interesting that Igor thought there was an abstract in the sky portion, while I was thinking there was a cool image with just the grasses and trunks without the sky.  I think this works real well Preston.  I think it makes perfect sense.

I'm finding the chaos at the bottom of the trees difficult to come to terms with but love the dendritic mass of branches above as well as the light play on them.

Preston, I can see why you were attracted to this scene. I agree with both Igor and Gary. There is a really nice abstract image in the top of this scene, and a nice study in light and shadow with the bottom tree trunks and grasses. While they are both interesting standalone scenes, their difference in tonality is so much that it's hard for them to work together in one shot for me. The exposure and contrast here are fine in each of those scenes, you've handled that as well as can be expected. With the bottom of the sky being halfway down, i think it creates two images here (each nicely handled, but hard ot mesh together).

Similar to Igor's thoughts, I thinks the hints of yellow on the branches and the blue sky would make a nice stand alone shot.  My ese seem to go up that way and stay there.

This controlled chaos works well. I might consider cropping the top some to eliminate the big branch coming in from the top left corner. Maybe halfway between the top and the horizontal main tree branch up there, if that makes sense. Nice stuff. 

Hey Preston,

Green grass already coming in, yet many months away from buds on the trees...

I can see the challenge here in trying to create order from chaos, and for the most part I think you've done that.  I'm with most others that I think the bottom is more chaotic and the bare branches against the blue sky up top holds the real interest for me.  I was thinking along the same lines as just presenting the top with no reference to the ground or the busy under growth.

I really like all the branches and how they fill the frame against the blue.  A square crop from the top down would be cool.

Lon

Fascinating photo Preston. Looks like a scene straight out of a fairy tale. There is both mystery and grace in those twisted branches. Love the overall composition too, which has really pulled the different elements together.