Walk in the Woods.

[Bynx]

A nearby path that goes for miles in each direction. 4 shots to make HDR.

 

[Mendoza]

This one to me appears, perhaps intentionally, a bit soft. It might benefit from greater contrast.

 

[manaheim]

Composition seems somewhat dull and uninteresting... the path leads the eye, sort of... but gets cut off... and then where is it leading us, anyway? The path is also dead-center and doesn't lend much interest, and the scene itself is frankly kind of unpleasant... semi-dead and broken trees, but not in any terribly interesting way. It's also a bit washed out, and it actually appears to be tilted slightly.

In the end, from both a compositional and technical standpoint, it's not a very good image.

It also appears the sun is behind you and to your left... which means that you had the benefit of being able to get a nicely blue sky without going HDR, and what HDR processing you did doesn't appear to have lended much, since, after all most of the light coming to the camera is going to bounce off pretty much any surface you can see. Since your tonemapping didn't have any particularly overwhelming result other than to perhaps muck up your sky a bit and give you fringing around your tree branches, overall I would say the end result was the HDR was a waste of time.

Personal opinions, of course.

 

[Bynx]

Composition seems somewhat dull and uninteresting... the path leads the eye, sort of... but gets cut off... and then where is it leading us, anyway? The path is also dead-center and doesn't lend much interest, and the scene itself is frankly kind of unpleasant... semi-dead and broken trees, but not in any terribly interesting way. It's also a bit washed out, and it actually appears to be tilted slightly.

In the end, from both a compositional and technical standpoint, it's not a very good image.

It also appears the sun is behind you and to your left... which means that you had the benefit of being able to get a nicely blue sky without going HDR, and what HDR processing you did doesn't appear to have lended much, since, after all most of the light coming to the camera is going to bounce off pretty much any surface you can see. Since your tonemapping didn't have any particularly overwhelming result other than to perhaps muck up your sky a bit and give you fringing around your tree branches, overall I would say the end result was the HDR was a waste of time.

Personal opinions, of course.

I was going to ignore your comments but what the hay. First off Im not responsible for a single tree, bush or blade of grass. Someone else is responsible for that. The path goes for miles and its all like this -- very uninteresting. No mountains, rivers or valleys. No waterfalls or anything else of interest. As for the tilt, well the horizon would be level if you could see one. The land did, in fact, slope downwards from left to right and I wasnt going to compensate for that. Its an accurate depiction of the scene and Im simply putting the viewer in the scene. Boring or not. While I agree its a boring image, its what I had to work with. As for your comments about the HDR effects on the picture, well you know what I think of your opinion on that. And it was my time to waste, not yours.

 

[manaheim]

Interesting on the slope... funny how it totally feels like the whole image is off just slightly. Out of context can do weird things. Quite neat, actually.

Well, you said it yourself... it's a boring image. Don't know what more I can say. *shrug*

For the record, I wasn't blaming you for the condition of the forest.

 

[pbelarge]

This image may possibly be improved by changing it to portrait style. Also next time also possibly changing the angle a little by squating down some.

 

[Bynx]

This image may possibly be improved by changing it to portrait style. Also next time also possibly changing the angle a little by squating down some.

Actually I dont think there is much to improve this image. Im not going to be shooting the trail any more. Just walking it. I just wanted to show what I have to put up with, with the boring crap around here. Ive gotta move to some place nice and interesting.

 

[pbelarge]

Bynx
You strike me as a good photographer.

Sometimes most of us think we live in terrible photographic areas when we see people post from great areas.

I challenge you to a photo-opportunity. As you walk the trail, don't look for vistas, look for the small stuff. Photograph, a leaf, twig, branch, imprint in the trail, a passing bird, etc...
Then take those images and become creative in your editing skills.

Good luck!!!