Temple House

This was taken during a heavy snow storm in Staunton, VA last year. Everything looked so serene. I was going for an "old fashioned" look on the photo here ...it sort of reminds me of my grandfathers photos from 1960's ...what do you think?

Stevan, I'm feeling a tilt to the left - illusion??? Also, there seems to be very little in the mid-tones. Also, everything is white or black without, or nearly without, details. Would a singe shot HDR (actually just tone mapping) work on something like this??? - Terry

Centering the subject here as its framed in with the trees works pretty well. I agree with Terry about this being very high contrast with very little gray and detail. If shot in RAW, you can most likely pull something out of the midrange. Not much needed really as it looks good in hard contrast.
Terry, it does appear to tilt left but i think its the slope of the sidewalk coming in from left frame. Crop up just above that and the illusion is gone. Looks straight enough.

It does not make me think of an old photograph as you describe, but if you washed it out somewhat and added a bit of grain it could take on the appearance if thats what your going for.

Nice work

The sidewalk is the culprit when it comes to "tilt" - but when cropped, it somehow looks "funny". I changed 2 cameras since this - it was shot with a 5MP Kodak with no RAW - so, it was a challenge getting even this much out of it ...technically, I think it has several flaws - but I decided the play with it from the "feel" and composition perspective ...either way, all points well taken ...thanks.

Terry - the Synagogue is local tone mapped - via a mask selection - it made it a little more gray, but no additional detail really came out - to be honest, I was sort of bummed, because I was hoping it would actually make the building "pop" more than it did. I chose to soften the background and add some vignetting to darken the outside to emphasize the building - which is part of the reason some of the looks dark and detailed-less in those sections ...

Certain parts of the snow and building look hot on my monitor....but maybe it was necessary to extract enough contrast for the rest of the scene. It also seems a bit soft to me.

A bit unlevel. Very very nice central shot, but might be nice a bit wider and cropped tighter above and below.