After closer inspection, the church steeple is tilled toward the center of the image and the image must have been hand held because there's zero sharpness to the image. use a tripod and slightly longer exposure. The idea is to position one self in an area where they can capture the shapes and shadows of the church. Converting to black and white does help locate and darken these elements. You may have to position yourself in several locations around the church. Plus time of day or night would need to be accounted for. try early morning or early evening as the sun setting will cast shadows on the church and other surroundings. Also, try vertical (portrait mode) instead of horizontal (landscape mode).

It is unclear why anything happens. Could be my charming personality. But One thing is for sure, those sites that banned my accounts are biased toward those who do not post process their images or do not have "main stream" heavily enhanced images. I refuse to PP or enhance my images. I suspect that those sites simply do not like that I help others avoid using PP software and relay on their camera & eye to take the picture. Plus I suspect they are not practical to my critical critiques of other's images. I call it like I see it. if your image is garbage, I'm going to say it and I think you'd do the same to my images. Without critical critiques how is one to learn or they can simply turn off the negative. it is very rare I ask for a critique simply because my images are what they are. Either you like them or you don't, they're not up for critiques.. Period. The sad part about this, several other members at those sites can spout off with F this and F that within their comments and not get banned.

Common Quail Known for it's "Bob White" call.

Sunrise Blue Ridge Parkway (unedited)

Nikon Full frame camera + 85mm F1.8 or better for portraits

Ouch, you spent a few thousand on that lens which doesn't do your shot justice. It's leaving a weird bokeh in the background which isn't pleasing to the eye. You need a micro lens to better attempt this shot

A polarization or ND filter should be used, selected differant times of the day to reattempt the shot. Compere each shot at differant hours for naturally occurring contrast and shadows.

"Abstract" should not be used with this image as you have silhouetting going on. The best part about this image and you need to excel with this is the top left where the group of leaves have varying shades and shadows on them. This is where you need to reattempt your image once again and capture more of the shades and shadows of the leave not just a dark silhouette

Please post the original image without PP.

This image would have been more dramatic if taken near dusk, night or on a longer exposure.

I don't do any fine tuning when take my photos anymore as the controls are small and complex to adjust. I allow the camera to adjust these for me. There's only one thing I adjust manually, that force focusing on a particular subject within the framed shot. I suspect that if I was to return to film photography I'll have to manually adjust my images once again.

Current there are restriction entering and exiting Canada in order to get into Alaska. If your planning on driving, you'll have to follow Canada new covid rules to get into and through the country. Also think about the time of year you're going. you will see early snows and you may actually get snowed in so be prepared.

Just the Cokin "P" plastic slide in filter adapter mounted to the lens in conjunction with the lens rings for the variety of lens sizes.

Depending on your software, try "Dehaze" which will remove as much or as little of the white background and add a darker blue background.

Good to know @PhotogHobbyist as I've contacted Nations Photo Labs also, However they informed me that anything larger than 16 x 20 would not be shipped in a box and must be rolled up.