Opinions?

[Chris Calohan]

In defense and albeit more to personal taste than anything else, I went back to his original statement as to the vitality of the these trees surviving the harsh winters and eventually growing sideways out of the mountain as my guide for the edit.

I think my edit thrusts the tree trunks up and outward in a more pronounced manner by placing the emphasis on the thrust and not on the surroundings. In the original, and in the B&W conversions, the background is an equal player. For me, that was too much balance for me to get too excitied about the shot.

[RobbieV]

After viewing all of the images, I still come back to the original. I do have a bias for colours. Not necessarily saturated and vibrant, but colour in general. On my monitor I really enjoy the interaction between the greens and browns.

[bdosserman]

Hi,
   I'm probably in no position to comment, but I'm going to anyhow. I think it's a striking photo, and like it irrespective of any rule-breaking. I think a more aggressive crop could be helpful in directing attention to the trees. Cutting out some of the bottom and right to really focus in on the trunks might be good (oddly enough, I was thinking this when I saw the photo, and then when I clicked on the B&W further down, it opened in a window which didn't show the full frame, and it looked very similar to what I had in mind). I like it in color. The one advantage I see in the B&W is that it really brings out the mesh of trunks going into the distance. If you can find a way to do that without sacrificing the color, I think it'd be a great photo.

Best,
Brian