On The Way Home

[Overbeyond]

Taken on my way home from a visit to a monastery during my recent time in south western China. This came out a lot better than I expected. Sometimes this happens but more often it's the other way round with me.
Comments welcome
Tom

[conbu19]

OT, the vastness comes thru to me. Every journey begins with the first step.
Terrific job of "seeing"!
Steve B.

[Photo-John]

I think this is a great location and you have wonderful composition. I wish you hadn't cropped quite so far up from the bottom. I'd like to see all of the reflections in the water. It feels a bit chopped at the bottom. I also think doing some post-processing to lighten up below the cloud and increase saturation would make this stronger. To me, this photo is good raw material to make something special out of. But it's only the beginning.

[Frog]

I'm totally agreeing with Photo-John.

[gahspidy]

Tom, this is a fantastic scene, the way the cloud is hanging over the houses. I too feel it a bit too tight at the bottom and bringing out a little more of the shadows and detail in the bottom area of the shot would improve. As for more saturated color . . .I'm thinking this could look very ominous in B&W. Great catch, tom

[readingr]

Tom,

I have to agree with all of the above. However i think it needs a mask applied to the bottom and to get the lad lightened so that we can see it better. The colour looks good to me and does not need to be saturated any more at this time.

I would check this out in B&W too as Gary suggested - it could be a really good B&W photo.

Roger

[Ronnoco]

Post-processing is necessary to take out the three "wires?" in the sky at the base of the cloud and to the right. Unless the landscape is brightened you have a good sky but no centre of interest. I would also tend to use a software filter to improve the colour and keep the noise down associated with saturation.

Ronnoco

[CLKunst]

I am also thinking that a black and white conversion would be interesting to see. The bright blue sky seems overwhelming compared to the deep shadows beneath the cloud. A conversion and some dodge and burn would really make this an intense image.

[Photo-John]

Post-processing is necessary to take out the three "wires?" in the sky at the base of the cloud and to the right. Unless the landscape is brightened you have a good sky but no centre of interest. I would also tend to use a software filter to improve the colour and keep the noise down associated with saturation.

I have mixed feelings about removing the wires. It's one thing to optimize color, contrast, etc., in order to convey the feeling of a place or event. But I get uncomfortable about removing things that were actually there. Of course, it's the photographer's perogative to do as they please with their own photo. But I wouldn't remove the wires. I've done it before and never felt right about it.

[Ronnoco]

I have mixed feelings about removing the wires. It's one thing to optimize color, contrast, etc., in order to convey the feeling of a place or event. But I get uncomfortable about removing things that were actually there. Of course, it's the photographer's perogative to do as they please with their own photo. But I wouldn't remove the wires. I've done it before and never felt right about it.

I tend to think that they might be misconstrued as scratches on the "film", so I would therefore take them out. They don't however cause too much of a visual distraction.

Ronnoco

[EOSThree]

I think this has a lot of potential. I am drawn to the building on the left but find myself wishing for better light in the foreground. I would like to see a re shoot(I know impossible)with better light. I'm with John on the wires, if they were there, they should stay.

[Overbeyond]

Thanks everyone for your replies.
The reason I cropped from the bottom was because lots of unsightly weeds took over so there was no more good reflections.
I have since done a larger version for print and the wires do become too obvious and I did remove them
I also gave the foreground a little lift.
No doubt the black and white looked like something with lots of potential and I will continue to explore this.
It was taken very late in the afternoon when I took this. It was a little eerie because while everything below was starting to loose the light the sky retained the nice blue. You can actually see some of the houses in the distance have their lights on.
Thanks again to you all.
Tom