More Aspen - pick one

These were both captured the morning Harley, Preston, Youssef and I worked these aspens along the June Lake Loop. Here are a couple I got that morning and I'm not sure which one I like better.

Both could use additional processing work I think, but good enough for now. The originals are a bit under exposed to start with.

Thanks for looking. Help me decide!

4x5, 300mm, V100f
Tony Kuyper's Luminosity and Saturation Masks

Lon

Here's the other one. Oh, and the compression quality on the first was @55% and the second one I had to reduce the dimensions AND save at 55% just to get under 200k!

I think there are more leaves than pixels. that's why.

I like the second one. There's a bit of a receding perspective that draws my eye in, and I think that gives it a bit of an edge over the first one.

The bottom one seems warmer and brighter. The greens seem to give it some background depth.

I much prefer the first. I think the boles add a great deal to the image compositionally. I find they add a lot of structure and grounding to the image. I also like the strong colors and shape of the centered smaller tree top as framed by the boles.

WOW, gorgeous stuff here, Lon. I find both images just super and giving off very clean colors and tones too. I will go with number one if I had to pick between the two.

Are boles background holes? If not what are they?

Lon,

Good Lord! I think I am looking at two of my own images! I like the first one best as I really find the branches most interesting.

They still feel unexposed to me. The vibrant colors are muddy. Hope you don't mind but I took a crack at it.

I much prefer the mixture of colors and distribution of trunks and branches in the first from a compositional standpoint. And with just a little more pp as you say, I think it would really pop. Good stuff!

Youssef - how about looking at 3 of your images instead of just 2? I wasn't going to post this because it's nearly identical to yours. And folks... I can assure you that we captured these images completely independantly; I didn't know that he had captured his and vice versa. This one here is actually a number of paces to the left as the background is shifted. The only other big difference is the film used - V100F. It be curious to see the trannies side by side.

Richard - thanks for the re-work and no, I don't mind. But just for future reference, you should always ask first. We're all friends here of course, but I think we get lax and I think it's just good practice to ask.

LOL... still don't know what the boles are
..and Richard I DO like the POP your version has...
but if you do this type of thing, Please tell us what you did, OK?
If I could see them all done the same way it would be easier to decide LOL
Ah, Heck Lon... just do a Triptych
and put the Vertical in the middle....

I think you should give the second image to Richard Wong for post processing. I like the comp of the second image better. We see so many straight on fall shots. The post processing that Richard did to image #1 is very nice.

- Dan.

Boles are tree trunks. For some reason, I only see that reference when talking about aspens, but I don't believe the term refers only to aspen trunks.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
Bole

Bole\, n. [OE. bole, fr. Icel. bolr; akin to Sw. b[*a]l, Dan. bul, trunk, stem of a tree, G. bohle a thick plank or board; cf. LG. boll round. Cf. Bulge.] The trunk or stem of a tree, or that which is like it.

I like the first one Lon. I think somewhere in between yours and Richard's version would be very nice.