David DiRoma
October 2025 - Tug Hill Beaver Pond
About the Image(s)
My particular interest is in landscape photography. I recently participated in a hike through an area of “old growth forest” in the Tug Hill region of upstate New York. Fall colors are starting to peak and we came to this pond which contains at least four active beaver lodges and three beaver dams. This image was taken just before noon, facing northwest.
Camera: Nikon D750
Lens: Nikkor 24 -120 at 38mm
ISO: 800
Exposure: f11 at 1/500
Processed in Photoshop with a small curves adjustment and cropping.
1 comment posted
(Groups 5 & 6)
There is a lot going on here! It's a very busy scene taken at a time of day where the light is not in your favor. The harsh overhead sun has cost you detail in some of the shadows that create black voids - bracketing would have helped with that.
I understand your decision to include the entire tree on our right, at least the upper tip. Our eye tends to move into a scene from the lower left corner, then move into the scene until it either follows a curve back into the scene, or hits an obstacle and bounces off. You want to avoid bright spots or lines that lead the eye out of the scene, esp on the right side. I think this scene would do better if you cropped it midway into the trunk of the first pine silhouetted on the right, to provide that barrier to encourage our eyes to remain in the scene. It would be worth losing a bit along the bottom edge to maintain the ratio if that is important to you. Having sacrificed much of that tree in any case, I don't think you really benefit from keeping the tip of it, given the plain sky. So I would be more inclined to crop from the top and right rather than the bottom and right.
Your scene really is the colorful trees and their reflection, everything else needs to serve to pull our eyes in that direction.
Lillian Posted: 10/13/2025 13:58:02
I understand your decision to include the entire tree on our right, at least the upper tip. Our eye tends to move into a scene from the lower left corner, then move into the scene until it either follows a curve back into the scene, or hits an obstacle and bounces off. You want to avoid bright spots or lines that lead the eye out of the scene, esp on the right side. I think this scene would do better if you cropped it midway into the trunk of the first pine silhouetted on the right, to provide that barrier to encourage our eyes to remain in the scene. It would be worth losing a bit along the bottom edge to maintain the ratio if that is important to you. Having sacrificed much of that tree in any case, I don't think you really benefit from keeping the tip of it, given the plain sky. So I would be more inclined to crop from the top and right rather than the bottom and right.
Your scene really is the colorful trees and their reflection, everything else needs to serve to pull our eyes in that direction.
Lillian Posted: 10/13/2025 13:58:02