Sorry I’m late posting this—I’ve been chasing flowers. Hope this is worth the wait! 

Before I start I’d like to once again thank all of you who have submitted photographs for this critique series. You’ve added many outstanding images in the collection—I wish I had time to write about all of them.

This week’s image, by Garen Johnson, was made near his home in Kildeer, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, after a late-February snow-and-ice storm. The snowy trees, bridge, and winding creek made great subjects for a photograph, and I can certainly see why Garen wanted to capture this image.

The composition is nicely arranged. The meandering creek, bridge, and overarching trees all seem well balanced within the frame. Garen sent me the original, uncropped version, which I’ve displayed below. You can see that he trimmed a little off the top and left sides, eliminating some slightly messy and distracting branches. He also cropped the bottom to reduce the big expanse of blank ice. That was a good idea, but I think he might have gone a bit too far; I’d prefer to see just a bit more space below a key feature like the reflection of the bridge. I’d also crop the right side a little as well; the tree trunk along the bottom half of the right edge is darker than anything else in the photo, so it’s a bit distracting. I show my preferred crop below as well.

While all that cropping is relatively minor, it’s always better to frame as precisely as possible in the camera so that you’re not throwing away too many pixels and reducing resolution. 

Garen wrote on Flickr that he wished the reflection of the bridge were bigger, but it was blocked by the ice at the bottom of the frame. I actually love that little hint of a reflection—it’s a nice, subtle detail that doesn’t leap out at you right away, yet adds a lot to the image once you see it. A full reflection of the bridge might have seemed a bit too cliché.

Garen told me that “the light was terrible that day, it was completely overcast with complete cloud cover.” He was hoping for some sun to bring out “shimmering reflections” from the icy trees. I’m not so sure sunshine would have improved this image. Sunlight filtering through the trees would have created random splotches of sun and shade, adding complexity and confusion. If the spots of light struck just the right places that might have worked, but the odds were against that. This soft, even lighting helped to simplify the composition, and contributed to the quiet, peaceful, wintry mood.

I talked about mood in my critique ofSteve Deligan’s dramatic image from March 17th. This week’s photograph effectively conveys a completely different feeling. Drama isn’t essential for conveying mood—sometimes a solo flute can be as powerful as a whole orchestra.

It’s worth taking a moment to look at the elements that contribute to the mood of this photo. Weather is certainly one of them—the snow and ice speak clearly of winter. The laden trees, the lack of footprints or other signs of people, the squiggly line of the creek, the calm reflections, and the muted color palette all convey quiet and serenity. We see vertical, horizontal, curved, and diagonal lines in the frame. Vertical and horizontal lines suggest stateliness and calm, while diagonals are energetic, and curved lines add rhythm and flow. All those fit with the mood here except the diagonals, but luckily they’re not too overwhelming, and most of them are at least slightly bent. 

The exposure looks perfect—the snow appears white, but not washed out. The overall contrast seems just right. The color balance is just a tad blue, which helps convey the cold, but I’d prefer to have the snow neutral in this case, which would make the whole image a little warmer. This could also look great in black and white.

Garen said that he couldn’t use a tripod because he had little time and the “snowplows were on my heels.” Since he needed to keep the shutter speed fairly quick to avoid camera movement, he used a medium aperture—f/8—and consequently didn’t get as much depth of field as he would have liked. To me things look pretty sharp overall, even when viewing a larger version. Although some of the branches in the lower-left corner, the ones closest to the camera, are a bit soft, that minor problem doesn’t detract from the message of the photograph.

Garen told me that, “What I learned most is to shoot it anyway; had I not shot that day because of the ‘bad’ light, or snow plows or lack of tripod, I would never have taken this one…” And that’s a great lesson. I’m glad he captured this, despite the problems he encountered.

Thanks Garen for sharing your image! You can see more of his work on Flickr.

If you’d like your images considered for future critiques, just upload them to the Flickr group I created for this purpose. If you’re not a Flickr member yet, joining is free and easy. You’ll have to read and accept the rules for the group before adding images, and please, no more than five photos per person per week. I’ll be posting the next critique on April 6th or 7th. Thanks for participating!