Enchanted

Taken at the same time as my last post. I posted this in ESS and got mixed opinons about whether the red leaves in the LRC add or distract. I personally like that little splash of color. Curious to see what you all think. I also have a B&W version if anyone is interested.

I'm definitely in the "leaves are distracting" camp. My eyes go to the bright center of the image then immediately down to the red and it really prevents me from wanting to explore the rest of the image. Great atmosphere though, and I'm not sure that a B/W would be better - I'd suggest just desaturating the leaves first.

Joseph - It's not that the leaves are distracting, it's that you don't have enough ground to tie the leaves to anything. They sort of float there and we don't see what they are connected to. I would prefer seeing more of the leaves, with additional understory plants.

I echo Marc's thoughts here. The leaves are a nice asset, but with a foreground taking in closer to a third of the frame it would have been more effective. I feel they distract in this case.

Hey Joe... I love the blue tones in the fog but the bottom seems kinda chopped off here. A close element in the fg would have made this image more personal.

I think it's cut a little short on the bottom and doesn't seem to have enough weight and those leaves, although I nice spash of color do seem out of place in this case.

The colorful plants do distract a bit IMHO. My eyes went straight there when I opened it up. Loved your shot on ESS.

Thanks all for your feedback. I agree the foreground is a bit clipped. Unfortunately, I wasn't in the best position for an optimal comp. I would hava had to bushwack down a small decline to get into the woods, and didn't have time.
Here's a version sans leaves. Better?

And here's the B&W.

Yeah, I like the color rework a lot. As the Marcs said, a little more foreground would be good, but what can you do.

Great shots Joe, both this and the one you posted on ESS. I much prefer the color version without the red leaves, and the BW is very good too. I really have no nits, the mood of the lighting and the composition really come together well here.

I love the look of the forest you got going, Joe. My comment on the original post is that I love the red in lrc, but there needs to be just bit more of it there. I thought the young tree on the right was more out of place in the frame compared to the red. As I look at the next posts in the series, I think of all of them, I like the B/W best. It makes the little tree against the right edge less prominent (it fits in better overall) and gives the impression a quiet, foggy walk among forest giants.

I like the b/w also. As Catherine said, it tones down the little tree on the right. :)

Thank you all for your input. I'm actually partial to the B&W myself. The trees aren't as "giant" as they seem, but I think they do give that impression. I was kind of going for that look, I'm happy that I was successfull in that!

I like the black and white a lot Joe, I'll echo the thoughts about the red area adding if you had more room on the bottom.

I absolutely disagree that the crop is better than the original. The original is fantastic. I love it, it has drama, it has atmosphere. The photography is about emotional impact, not about textbook composition.
I hate when a good photograph comes with a great emotion in it, emotion that can't be defined by lines and formulas, it just is, then suddenly others nitpick on everything, force the author to change the comp to follow the theory - and the photograph dies.
The flowers on the bottom bring contrast to the photo. Be the contrast they actually enhance the dark mood of the trees, rather than distract. The flower-less version is simply boring.
At the same time the b/w version kills the feel of air caused by bluish tint on the color version.
The conclusion is - the first intuition is always right. When you start to bend to others opinion, you can only kill your own art, but never enhance.

Thank you Cezar for your input. Your thoughts are always interesting, as you seem to react more to how an image makes you feel, rather than how technically perfect it happens to be. Emotional impact is important to me as well, although the ideal would be the best of both worlds!
I happen to like the B&W, but my favorite is still the first version. While ideally I would have liked a little more foreground as a lot of others have mentioned, I agree with you that something is lost when the red leaves are omitted. For me they don't distract, but instead add contrast and a counterpoint to the bluish mist as you have stated, and enhance the mood for me.
It's interesting how people have such differing opinions and perspectives, and I think it helps you to see things you may have overlooked. But I agree, sometimes the mood and atmosphere transcend getting that "perfect" composition, and increasingly, that's what seems to move me the most.