Vine Maple Again

I wanted to post this a while back but everytime I make it to my home office to work I end up working on more pressing matters, so please forgive the lack of technicals. I really wanted some feedback on this one. Personally I like it, but have a tendancy to fall in love with my own photos

Thanks for any feedback...

DRebel
70-200 f4L @ somewhere close to 200mm
most likely f8 or f16.
polarizer
Uncropped.

We were both shooting this specemin and as we turned the polarizers, the red got incredibly brilliant.
Shot near Lost Lake early Oct this year, around 8 or 9 a.m.

The color is terrific! I would really like to see some more blur on that background though. The brighter spot in the background is fighting for my attention.

Nice color and framing. I'd suggest considering removing the almost touching leaves on the left side (from another tree?). I'm with Eric on the distraction of the bright BG limb (LL).

My own experience this fall was learning how difficult it was to get the effect I wanted shooting vine maple in sunlight, even using a polarizer. I essentially gave up and went looking for shaded trees.

I can identify with your sunlit VM issue Steve. I actually had a fair amount of success with it this year... at least IMHO anyway...

I posted this one in the M&N gallery

and I don't think I posted this one anywhere yet... My main nit with it is the distracting tree trunk in the BG... kinda ruined the shot for me...

I agree re: distracting tree trunk. I just looked again; I thought maybe a Gaussian Blur, masking the good stuff might work. But, after the second look, I don't know.

Like the colors!