Kvikken

I'm very glad that you like it. I think it turned out pretty good as well, especially considered it was a bit of a take-what-you-have-to-use-in-an-arms-length, and an extremely spontaneous shoot

And I really, really appreciate you taking the time to give a critique to this picture, sharing your thoughts about what you like about it. Thank you

I'm very glad you did "spill out" your personal preferences, it's always interesting to see how others see my work and what they would have liked to do themselves, things that maybe would be something to think about for another time.
Also it "forces" me to look at the picture with new eyes, and try out new things, which is good.

I took tons of pictures of these stairs, from the bottom, from the middle, looking up and down and viewing it in all kind of different ways, taking pictures in portrait format, landscape format, tilted, straight, tiptoeing and almost laying on the ground, but not for one second did I even think about looking at the stairs in any different way than this, straight on, from above. I guess the fact that I could "barely" look over the wall that is placed between my standing point and the view is a really bad excuse

I did try out a 1:1.25 format [link] . At first I didn't like it very much, the stairs got a lot of more focus, but it kind of felt a bit claustrophobic in a way.
Now I think it actually looks pretty good, but I think I still might prefer the square; with a lot of emptiness at the sides which I think to some degree really emphasis the stairs, make them stand out.

I'm so glad that it inspired you. It kind of makes me feel like I'm giving something back for all of your pictures that has inspired me

First I'd like to thank you so much for taking the time and effort to do this, it really means a lot to me.

So over to your comments:

I'm not really sure if I understand what you mean that it's taken upside down from top to button...but I agree with you about the fact that I should have included all of the leaves at the side, I guess I was too focused on the other leaves to notice the others when it mattered.

When it comes to the colourbalance I think I disagree with you. The leaves had some beautiful green tones with oranges and yellows in them and I wanted to enchance that, the picture could maybe have a tiny, tiny bit more blue in it, but definately not much.

The aperture could definately have been smaller. I think I'm so fond of shallow depth of field, that I often realize too late that it probably was a bit too shallow. And I never really seem to learn that I shouldnt trust the screen on the camera when it comes to judging sharpness. I originally inteneded both the main leaves to be as sharp, something I obviously didn't manage...!

Again, thank you so much for this, when I opened up for critiques I actually didn't think anyone would post one.

Well, even if you take black and white pictures with an old-fashioned film camera you still see the world through the view-finder in colors. I personally don't see the difference between the picture turning into black and white in the camera or in Photoshop.

"but back then in the beginning of it there were no computers or other technical methods to help and people were able to make good photos"

I always find it fascinating when people who are against any kind of post-processing talks about the good old film days as if nothing was done with the pictures back then, and everything was so "pure". Have you ever heard about a darkroom? Do you know how the developing process of photographic film works? Even the first pictures had to be processed and developed somehow, and in the darkroom a lot (and I mean a lot, there's a reason photo editing programs are called digital darkrooms) of stuff can be done. Sure, they had to start all over again if they made a mistake, there was no ctrl+z and undo back then, but photographers would spend hours in the darkroom, dodging, burning, increasing contrast and make vignettes. They would play around with different processing methods to develop the negatives. Some would slightly burn their negatives to make interesting melting effects, or maybe deliberately make the pictures blurry and hazy while developing them.
Photographers had to be good at taking the pictures and develop them. Today photographers have to be good at taking the pictures, and post-process them, same same, different tools, more options. Post-processing doesn't mean you're a bad photographer - you can't take a bad picture and make it good in Photoshop, but you can definitely make a good photo even better.

And then over to the fake part. What defines fake when it comes to photography? The world is in colors, does a picture taken with black and white film show the reality? Definately not in the purest sense of the word, but yet I doubt you would call it a fake. A long shutter, making trails of light and silky smooth water, short shutters or flash freezing the moment, the framing of a picture so that you only see the tiny little idyllic house and not the grim grey high-rises right next to it, is that a representation of reality? No! You have many ways of manipulating a picture and reality and I don't understand why some are more "real", or "natural" as you put it, ways to do it than others. Is it natural to put a warm filter in front your lens? Why then is it so different to put a warm filter in front of your picture in Photoshop? Same result, different technique. Do you trick your audience if you take a picture in RAW and change the white balance later? Yes, the photo process have changed - RAW-files and photo editing tools have moved and made it possible for a lot of the decision making to be done later in the process, I see no problems with that.

I also like your mention of painters and drawers. You see I look at photography as a mean to making a good picture. I don't care if the colors aren't real or if the atmosphere is darker or lighter than reality, cause I don't want to portray reality. If I stand at a magnificent view and take a picture I want people that look at the picture to feel the same way as I did when I stood there, and they don't feel the same way by looking at a two-dimensional picture with real "bland" colors. I think a lot of painters have felt the same throughout the times, and that's why they have chosen color palettes that don't resemble reality. Why can't photographers do the same?

(As a little sidenote, I see you take your pictures with a little compact camera, the camera actually process the picture in the camera, increasing contrast and colors and all that before it is saved as a jpg. A picture taken in RAW-format would appear a lot flatter and with less contrast and saturation. More highlights and shadows are intact and you have better control of processing the picture without "destroying" the pixels. Oh, but of course, if it is done in the camera and you have no control over the contrast increasing then of course it is okay I guess. Burn all photo editing tools!).