Snaps: It pains me to have to recreate scenes of natural components, but I really couldn't let this one get away. I was walking down a trail, and to the side I saw a leaf on top of the snow. This, as you may not know, is quite uncommon for me as I am used to all the leaves falling to the ground before all the snow comes and buries it. I got my camera out, had a name picked out and everything. I was going to call it "Too Late", because clearly it was behind its schedule. I was about to take the picture- and it blew away! It was a few minutes later that I realized a number of leaves on the side of the trail were on top of the thick layer of snow . I placed the leave in a way that seemed appropriate (oh the possibilities! ), and then I was done, point for me.

http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh287/Deadly_Dance/TooLate.jpg

Very nice concept!

To me nature photography is all about making nature look even more beautiful than it already is. So I'm actually not against 'artificial' enhancements or recreations in your case. When I make a picture, I see the image in my mind, use my imagination and try to shape it accordingly.

Anyways enough babbling, I want to give some direct pointers on the pic .. if you don't mind. If you do mind, ignore me.

First of all, shooting images in the snow is very tricky .. you have white everywhere and a gigantic amount of light being reflected. Most cameras automatically adjust to that by closing their diafragm. This'll prevent the image from becoming one big white blur .. but it also comes at the cost of detail.

You notice in your image the snow is more grey than white, because of this compensation method. Personally I'm a fan of vivid colors so I would have overwritten the automatic adjustment and made the picture brighter, automatically making the contrast between the snow and the leaf bigger. Or did it through photomanipulation software afterwards.

Another tip I want to give is about the composition. You wanted to show the leaf surrounded by snow, which is a very nice and unique concept. When I look at your picture I see a lot of (greyish) snow and a small, wrinkled up leaf in the middle. To really put the emphasis on the leaf it would have been better to zoom in on the image a lot and only leave the edges filled with brilliant shimmering snow, while the leaf itself contrasts against the white background and shows a lot of detail. The leaf should be the dominant aspect of the picture in my eyes, not the snow like it is now.

It's possible to still manipulate this picture into a better one but if you prefer you can always try again and mess wihth your camera settings until you get something nicer. A good photographer will always shoot a whole pile of shots of one thing ... just to get that one shot that comes close to what they have in mind. Even then it's often not among the pictures they took.

Zan made some great points. I second his suggestion of enhancing the colours. I would do it in photoshop by playing with the brightness, colour, contrast, and possibly levels as well.

Nice idea though

Snaps: Oh wow, thank you Zan. I was not expecting such detailed helpful information . I took four or five pictures before I started getting behind on the group I was walking with at the time. I'll try and throw it into a photoshop program when I get a chance and see what comes up.

Hehe, sorry .. that's the photographer in me posting. Hope you don't mind.

Snaps: Oh no, I don't mind. I just did not think anything I posted would arose such determination in anyone's critique (the positive kind in this case of course : ) ).