Vine Maple Chaos

At least it seems chaotic to me. I was playing with lines, textures, and positive/negative spaces while cropping a somewhat larger image. I purposely limited DoF on this: 12-24 at 24mm; f/4; 1/100 second. Levels, curves, minor burning of leaves.

Does this composition work at some level, or am I wasting time with this image? Anyone have thoughts on how it might be or have been improved?

Comments and feedback much appreciated!

The dark area top right in the background is too distracting, imo. Crop the top 1/3 off and you might have something.

Thanks Bryan; I've played a little more with cropping, but...sometimes you can only take it so far.

I like this image. Its skeleton is the highlighted sections of limb, nice sharpness there; it wears its leaves in a dance that makes it hard for the viewer not to be drawn into abstraction. IMO the nicely located little piece of cool green at TR sets it all off wonderfully. I believe this image has much to commend it. Keep working it Steve. IMHO of course.

Wow, great reds! IMO, a couple of comments: A shallower DOF would create more separation between in-focus and out-of-focus areas; more easily achieved with a telephoto lens. The limb and branches going through the upper center 1/3 of the frame are incongruous with the rest of this beautiful tree. So is the upper right. A gaussian blur of the top 1/3 (where the naked limb begins) would solve the issues (again, IMHO). If you try it, I'd like to know if you think it worked for the image. Glad to see you jumping in and posting. Again, welcome aboard. It's nice to see your work.

I can totally see why you stopped to shoot these guys. I like Catherine's suggestions and would like to see the results.

Thanks folks for some helpful feedback. First, Catherine's suggestion: GB at 5 pixels (on my Master file). I wasn't sure if the naked limb you referred to was the vertical or the horizontal (I guessed vertical). Fairly quick mask (not exact) on leaves appearing in roughly the same FG plane. BTW, fully agreeing with Catherine's "change lens" suggestion, backing up and using a telephoto would have put me in the middle of Skyline Road on a curve (potentially roadkill)!

Second followup, incorporating both Catherine's and Bryan's suggestions: same GB at 5 pix; recropped to eliminate BG "dark area." After looking at this one awhile, it's also done something for the LL "third" (the in-focus elevated cluster of leaves) and the opposing UR "third" (BG green conifer) in that the former is advanced (in focus), while the latter (dark hole) is recessed (more blurred). More stuff going on with the positive/negative spaces.

What do people think? Has recropping improved the image? Have I got a "workable" image, or is it just "hard on the eyes?"

Thanks again!

Steve

Made a world of diff

Yup, that's the winner.

That last one seems to be it.

Thanks folks; all feedback and suggestions are much appreciated.

Oh yes! The last one is IT! Good show and thanks for posting your follow-up work. Gees, I'm glad you DIDN'T use the telephoto! Too dangerous for the situation, I sure understand. The digital darkroom is much safer!