. . .on her flying trapeze.

Thank heavens the holidays are over and I can happily resume squirreling around in the critique forum again. Too much work!!! Anyway, here is an image I meant to post in November and just found while cleaning up the hard drive. From the Madam's Organ Bar in Adams Morgan, Washington D.C. Comments and Critiques if you please?

Lots of stuff going on there, C.L. -- the bottles, the lights, the mirror, etc.

FWIW, I imagine you didn't have a lot of choice.
John

That is the charm of this place. Very cluttered, dark and noisy with a dash of "bad bordello". I wanted to show a taste of that in this image. Does it convey or is it too dark?

CL,

My first impression without reading any replies is that it is too cluttered and too close - I think you need more to make sense of the place and the environment you are in.

Reading your comment - yes it comes over as a gloomy cluttered place but only after reading your comment and also a place you may not want to visit, unless your well protected.

Another thing is that the angles of the mirror aren't sufficiently out of kilter to make it interesting. It just looks like a snap if that makes sense. I think a little more angle or vertical frame would have been better.

Roger

The interesting images for my tastes are the nun in habit and the 'captioning' signs.

In fact this almost looks familiar. How longs has it been there? They didn't move some decor from Chevy Chase by any chance? It vaguely reminds me of a watering hole that was a local haunt in Md. about 20 years back.

Thanks for sharing.

>> Very cluttered, dark and noisy with a dash of "bad bordello".
I think you nailed it :)
Could do with a slight rotate to get the verticals vertical.
But maybe they weren't to start with in the real world !

Thanks for the replies everyone. Here I have straightened a little and brought up the shadows a bit and sharpened a tad. The first post was pretty much untouched except for the re-size to post so hopefully this will be an improvement with more details.
As far as I know this bar has moved once but only from a few blocks down the street and has always been named the Madam's Organ (It's kind of a neighborhood joke). They have a big neon sign out front that says "Sorry, We're Open". In fact there's a great band there tonight maybe l will head down there and re-shoot a few things. :)

Hi CL - This photo has a lot happening, sort of like a 'something for everyone' type of shot. I like the colors and glow. It does seem a slight bit chopped off at the top, like the rectangular format of the camera doesn't match the scene (that happens sometimes). The adjusted photo does seem brighter, but also has more grain. Overall it's a nice shot but I can tell you didn't have time to really consider various angles etc. Street fairs etc are wild. Thanks for posting, it really depicts Xmas time.

GB

I think that this is one of those shots that you have to have experienced to understand. I've been there so I think you've captured it wonderfully!! I really like how the bottles look like an audience watching the trapeze artist do her thang! I preferred it dark and musky!

I'm very drawn to this shot. I'm not quite sure how I feel about the composition. Though I'm no expert by any means, the left-hand string of lights is kind of acting as a divider to me between what I find really interesting, and what's merely there. This is somewhat taken care of in your rework, since it now has an edgier look. I hope you don't mind but I cropped it to better explain what I'm drawn to when I look at it.