I like the image. Simple with no clutter. Colour is good and the smaller tree creates balance. Image retains sharpness. I think its a quite effective composition.
Composition is very good, processing is very good, colours are rich, vibrant and well balanced, and the image... well... it just appeals to me.
If I were to be critical then the only thing I'd have liked would be to have a little more of the sky above the tree, rather than clip off the top of its branches.
It's an interesting photo. There looks to be a sunken track - probably quite ancient.
I find the smaller tree distracting, particularly as it doesn't lean at the same angle as the big one. I wonder if the image could be improved by cropping tightly to the large tree, ending up with the image in portrait mode?
Super forward thinking there Pete... keeping all options open eh... :) nice one.
I like (slightly to my surprise) the landscape view better than the portrait shot (and as an aside suggest the colour temperature/balance is better in the landscape shot).
What I'm lacking in both is a sense of dimension, both of the remaining hill peak, the gully/track and the other trees. I'm also not getting the sky which must be the dominant feature commanding this landscape. I wonder if shooting from a little further back and more along the line of the gully might have drawn the distance out, particularly if the view was portrait and the lens angled slightly up to emphasise the sky.
But I'm niggling, this is a fine picture with good colours, nicely defined tree details and a crisp tree shadow.
My question back would be what did you see and want to say about it?
There are lots of pieces of the picture that are really very nice; the sky detail, the angle of the tree, quality of the light, the deeply cut path with the light catching it.... but overall I don't get a feeling that I know what was the important focal point for you (visually and in content).
The landscape picture has a number of possibilities for compositional emphasis but as it stands it doesn't quite say; 'look at this'. I think the portrait picture doesn't have the same potential to be honest.
Technical perfection without doubt,... compositionally I think you could say much more.
Been looking at this picture on and off and trying to make my mind up about it. I think the thing is I am not sure what the intention was as it seems to me to be just a tree in a field. There is a lot of foreground and a lot of sky and whilst the tree is interesting in itself there is nothing much else that adds value to the image.
The colour is fine, though in winter shots we cannot expect the lush greens, but I can`t help but feel that the tree should have been more the focal point, perhaps closer or a different angle. The bottom line is that I have spent longer than normal looking at this image because it is in this area of the forum, however if you showed me this as a print it would not really keep my gaze for long.
I hope you are not offended Peter (apologies if you are) because I am not sure how I would have tackled this shot myself, but more than likely I feel there would not be enough here for me to attempt something. I have to say it takes a brave person to put an image in this area and it is not for the feint hearted.
All in all I commend you on the effort, and posting it here for critical feedback is a great way to learn.
I like the two trees, and I like the angles they're leaning at - but I felt that the spatial relationship between them isn't quite right and that a little more separation between them (not front to back but left to right) would be welcome.
Hey Pete - just a suggestion for you... why not try some aggressive processing of this image...? maybe a high contrast b&w conversion, you could get the tree jumping out from the page together with the sky looking mean (blues convert well to b&w) from something like that.
I think the landscape version works better than the portrait one because the width makes more sense of the wind-blown angle of the tree. Also, you need the smaller tree to emphasise the angle of the large one, and it's rather masked in the portrait shot.
As you've got the leaning tree almost perpendicular to the skyline, you really need the small tree to show that it wasn't you doing the leaning!
I wonder that it looked like from the top of the hill - or would that just have been a milling mob of the GBP???
Here's a view from further back up the hill, it was quite misty around and about, only really clear on the hill and upwards. More photos here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pete_vn52/).
I like the landscape picture of the tree because there's more space around it.
If I'd taken the picture I'd have been dissatisfied because I would have liked the tree isolated against the sky, and I'd probably go back and get down on my knees to take another one, with the tree over to the left of the picture and space on the right. But that's me, and that's my 'dream' picture - never yet found a tree I can do it with!
The mono one is lovely, wonderful atmosphere.