Autumn photo

I'm in my winter post-processing cave (unfortunately!), and am now working on some images from this past fall. Here's one I am debating about, taken near Red Mountain Pass, and I wanted some outside opinion.

Is it too busy? I am debating back and forth on that.

Do you think it's better in black and white?

Overall C&C most welcome!
-Jeff

Color is the way to go with this shot. it does seem a little to cluttered. try cropping the very bottom log with the chips out of it and see what that does for it. also crop the left side some to take out that distracting chip of blue sky. Still a great image. good on ya mate, love to see fall colors

I agree - color works best for this one. In black and white, all the tones seem to blend together. I'm seeing a distinct blue/cyan cast, in the color version, though.

To me, the most interesting part of this image is the mountain and bright yellow aspens peeking through the middle of the logs in the fence. Given that, I also agree that cropping extraneous "clutter" as Chad suggested would help clean it up.

Finally, I find myself going back to the middle and wishing that the UR log didn't cover the edge of the mountain. I keep thinking how cool it might look if the logs actually framed the mountain, like the left-hand log does - what do you think?

Just my two cents - take them for what they're worth!

Erik

Jeff, this composition doesn't work for me. What was your intent?
It appears that you are attempting to use the fence to frame the mountain, but too much of it is covered.

What Bill said. Nice try, though.

I don't think it's busy, I just don't think it works - and agree with Bill. But I really like your thinking though. Keep trying.

I attempt this type of image occasionally, and it's hard to pull off.

My main distraction is the harshness of the light. There's also not much tonal separation between the mountain and the sky. I'll concur with the "too busy" comments, too.

Interesting. Doesn't do it for me, but I would like to see a print. I vote for color because the yellow brings your eye to the mountain through the frame of the fence, which I'm guessing was your intention. You might try boosting the contrast and saturation to give more life to the fence.

Thanks for all of your comments.

I was driving around in the middle of the day, and the fence and clouds above the mountain struck my eye. Composing from a distance with the fence at the base of the mountain wasn't going to work, so I thought I'd try to frame the mountain through a gap in the fence. The gap wasn't perfect as it didn't allow the whole mountain to be seen, but I liked the contrasting colors and some of the detail in the old wood, so I wanted to give it a shot. Unfortunately, as some of you have pointed out, there are probably too many compositional problems here to make the image work. I'll try to crop it as suggested, but I don't think I can overcome its flaws. Oh well...

Thanks for looking, and I appreciate the honest input!
-Jeff

I concur its too busy, plus is that the road in the picture too?

I agree that it's pretty busy, but at least you tried it. Better luck next time.