Uphill battle

[Mulleteer]

Hi all!

First time poster here asking for advice.

Please look this image for a few seconds and then read further.

Where I live, we have now only ~3 hours of daylight.. if you can say that daylight. Typical adequate exposure requires 1/60 @ f/4 at noon. So I've been trying to capture the darkness and lack of light in my photos. In this case I've photographed steep uphill in dark forest path.

The focus is in front to underline the distance to the top of the hill and I cropped the image from right to lead eye to the glow on the top. The image is nearly completely unsaturated to hide the artificial light.

I'm asking for your impression, do these techniques work or am I overthinking this?

Thanks!

 

[newrmdmike]

i think it works . . . but my eye sticks to the bright leaves on the left, where its in focus, instead of at the glow.

 

[neea]

mine are drawn to the leaves also.
perhaps if the light at the end was brighter or bigger maybe.

 

[Flash Harry]

I'de totally desaturate and bump up the contrast as the way it is it looks very magenta and to me odd.

 

[LaFoto]

Heya Mulleteer, and welcome to ThePhotoForum!
Whereabout in Finland do you live to only get about 3 hours of daylight these days? (It would make me feel all sad to only see so little light - even our German winters manage to get me down).

As to your composition: I like it and I do like how the way snakes through the frame, but I must say I agree with the others: it is more the leaves on the left that attract my eye than the end of the path and the glow there. I did not even see the glow as GLOW before you mentioned it.

And I am not overly happy with the colour here, either.
How about an all black and white version for comparison?

 

[parthiv91]

Hi,
Apart from the bright leaves, the lower 1/3rd of the image (broad road) catch my eyes too...
Thats probably the sharpest part of the image and quite bright. May be crop the lower 1/3rd...

The serpentine look of the road looks very artistic...

If i close the lower 1/3rd of the image and ignore the bright flowers my eye then go to the bright spot at the end of the road.

Over all great pic. Keep it up...

 

[Mulleteer]

Good comments, I've to say I was kind of blind to those bright leaves (I was so fixated on my vision). I could give it little bit more photoshop and dodge out the leaves and maybe try it full BW. I'll see how it turns out.

Thanks!

 

[PNA]

Contary to the others, my eye went along the road to the "glow"...
Also, I do not get the feeling of a steep incline as you metioned. The trees seem to be at right angles to the road....??? this is not good or bad, just an observation to your statement.

Overall, nice shot. Try B&W and repost.

 

[Mulleteer]

Here is the pic as BW. I didn't touch the leaves.

As for the last comment about the lack of incline, this really is a steep hill but in retrospect it seems to be hard to get feeling of incline in photo w/o reference, the trees really don't help much

 

[mysteryscribe]

Try a lower angle get down to road level and shot up it.