Maple Leaf Fall

Majeed Badizadegan · Oct 24, 2012

After some intermittent showers, a look at Winter Falls dressed in fall color:

Maple Leaf Fall by Majeed Badizadegan (Rotanimod), on Flickr

Scuba · Oct 24, 2012

I enjoy this shot a lot. There is a good balance in this image. The yellows are stunning on the dark rocks. It seems a little soft to me. Did you use a tripod? It could just be the compression.

afoto · Oct 24, 2012

i find it a little distracting, is the focus the yellow leaf in the front, the stream rushing by into the right corner, or the waterfall in the background?

deeky · Oct 24, 2012

afoto said:
i find it a little distracting, is the focus the yellow leaf in the front, the stream rushing by into the right corner, or the waterfall in the background?

I agree, I bounced around myself. Based on my own preference, the leaf is the subject - it's a beautiful color set up well. But the falls in the back kept trying to pull my eye away.

jpbessey · Oct 24, 2012

I agree there are multiple subjects. Still a great job though!

Mully · Oct 24, 2012

I covered up the bkgnd with the waterfall and I liked better. Take a look at that.

Scuba · Oct 25, 2012

I like the waterfall. I feel it helps tell the story of the image with the running water next to the leaf.

spacefuzz · Oct 25, 2012

I like the leaf, but feel like Im missing the waterfall

Derrel · Oct 25, 2012

I find my eye going in a triangle! Left--falls-water, leaf-falls-water, leaf-falls-water....over and over and over! In some way, I find that to be...just ever-so-slightly unsettling,mentally...I cannot determine what "the subject" is...is it the leaf? It's an odd exercise in competing elements. Maybe that's a good thing? I'm honestly not sure. Does a photo need to have just ONE subject? I mean, virtually all photos are made up of multiple elements. We know that. This photo has three very strong,m clearly-discernable elements. Why do we want to try to reduce it to one "subject"; can the "subject" be the relationship of leaves, water, and rocks? Can "the subject" be a scene, or a slice of the world?

Majeed Badizadegan · Oct 25, 2012

It's been really interesting to watch the reception of this image unfold on this site and a couple others I use.

The first thing I've noticed is that this photo causes disorientation in some people. They aren't sure if they are looking down at a waterfall from a high POV, or looking at water coming at them.

Next, it seems some people are really uncomfortable with a photo that has more than one subject. I do see where that's coming from. Trying to imagine looking at the image for the first time, Derrel said it best, the eye bounces around the visual elements, almost in a triangle pattern. I suppose part of the success/failure of the image is it seems to make some people uncomfortable that they have to spend some time looking at the image to extract their own interpretation. We are definitely at an age where most photos are comfortable and easily accessible for a quick digest.

What I'm finding in this particular shot is it's a lot of things, namely that it's confusing and not easy. It could be a combination of the wet rock and the flat light making it a bit more difficult to separate and interpret the light. It could be the visual weight the foreground leaf carries that pulls the eye away from the falls. It makes the separation of elements not as easily accessible as some other shots from the same area. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, I don't know!

Tight Knot · Oct 26, 2012

Rotanimod said:
It's been really interesting to watch the reception of this image unfold on this site and a couple others I use.

The first thing I've noticed is that this photo causes disorientation in some people. They aren't sure if they are looking down at a waterfall from a high POV, or looking at water coming at them.

Next, it seems some people are really uncomfortable with a photo that has more than one subject. I do see where that's coming from. Trying to imagine looking at the image for the first time, Derrel said it best, the eye bounces around the visual elements, almost in a triangle pattern. I suppose part of the success/failure of the image is it seems to make some people uncomfortable that they have to spend some time looking at the image to extract their own interpretation. We are definitely at an age where most photos are comfortable and easily accessible for a quick digest.

What I'm finding in this particular shot is it's a lot of things, namely that it's confusing and not easy. It could be a combination of the wet rock and the flat light making it a bit more difficult to separate and interpret the light. It could be the visual weight the foreground leaf carries that pulls the eye away from the falls. It makes the separation of elements not as easily accessible as some other shots from the same area. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, I don't know!

I personally love this shot. I "feel" the story and the push-pull of the different subjects. I enjoy the movement the eye has to make to get the "full picture".
It's like a delicious layered dessert, each layer feeds off of the other and enhances the next layer as you go deeper.
I cannot tell if it's soft or not, but that could be my eyes and not the image.

PlanetStarbucks · Oct 26, 2012

Rotanimod said:
It's been really interesting to watch the reception of this image unfold on this site and a couple others I use.

The first thing I've noticed is that this photo causes disorientation in some people. They aren't sure if they are looking down at a waterfall from a high POV, or looking at water coming at them.

I think that's fairly telling actually. I didn't comment on this earlier because I was just on the fence. I wanted to like it, and I sorta do, but didn't really have anything to add. But after looking at it again and hearing "disorient" I realize that's exactly what it is. I think the size of the subjects is the issue. The waterfall and the leaf and the stream are almost the same size. Because I don't have focus or any highlight to key off of, I'm not sure what I should be looking at.