SECOND PLACE WINNER
Total judging points: 31
Judge's Comments:
1. This is an excellent image, composed very well and with excellent color, focus, and lots of impact. This is a very nice image.
2. What I like most with this image is how the photographer placed the hikers slightly off to the left while the route they were following stayed roughly in the center, thus lending more interest and a more dynamic feel to the image. I also like that the photographer shot this in vertical format and kept the hikers small to accentuate the ambience of the magical place where they were hiking.
I would, however, like to see a tad more sharpness on the couple. Maybe it’s there in the original image and it just doesn’t come across on Zenfolio. Or maybe this is a crop from a much larger image and so there just aren’t enough pixels left to render sharply. Another suggestion: adjust the saturation and luminance of the brightest trees toward which the trail leads. Toning that down just a wee bit might bring out more detail and be less distracting.
Having said all this, as much as I like this image it seems to lack a “wow!” factor that would make it stand out among a collection of similar images. I don’t know the photographer’s intention for this shot. Is there something special about the hikers? Or is the intended subject really the trail itself, as if for a guidebook, and the hikers are just props? Without knowing the intended purpose of the photo, I can only suggest looking for ways to render the scene differently more uniquely. The photographer might experiment with different vantage points, perhaps shooting from a very low angle to accentuate the leading lines of the trail. Or try zooming in on the couple with a wider aperture to blur out the background just enough that the setting and the season are still obvious.Also, I notice there might be a very slight vignette at the top of the image. If so, I might try extending the vignette all the way around the photo to accentuate the leading lines of the trail itself.