Yucca and Gravestones, Cades Cove

[CaraRose]

This was taken in a little cemetary behind one of the churches in Cades Cove. I liked the way the Yucca plant framed the left side of the picture. I took two shots, one focusing on the graves, one focusing on the Yucca. I'm not sure which works better.

I ran a sharpen filter over them, please let me know if its too harsh. Between my scanner and my monitor, it's hard to judge sometimes what is too much.

As always, any comments would be greatly appreciated.

[Seb]

This was taken in a little cemetary behind one of the churches in Cades Cove. I liked the way the Yucca plant framed the left side of the picture. I took two shots, one focusing on the graves, one focusing on the Yucca. I'm not sure which works better.

I ran a sharpen filter over them, please let me know if its too harsh. Between my scanner and my monitor, it's hard to judge sometimes what is too much.

As always, any comments would be greatly appreciated.

Hello CaraRose,

I am not sure about these ones. To me there is definately something wrong with the second picture where you focused on the plant. The graves are so important in the shot that not being able to read what's written on them feels mistaken.

On the other hand, when I look at the first picture, my eyes are naturally drawn to the graves but the plant seems misplaced. It detracts my attention from the grave.

With all due respect, I don't think that this composition works.

Seb

[Elysian]

That's a nice shot CaraRose, but the most important thing it lacks is depth or if you want to look at it in a different way; less competition between the plants and the graves.
This can be achieved by blurring the foreground. The quick example (because that's what it is) is to show you what kind of difference it makes and it's not my intention to turn this into the best solution. It's better to correct something like this at camera/lens level instead of using an image editor.

Well done! ;)

[gahspidy]

I would agree with Seb here that somehow the composition is not working well. I think i would have liked to see the tombstones standing more alone. Just my opinion, of course and does not make it right or wrong. Of the two, I would say I like the one focused on the tombstones more.

[kamboura]

OKay here is my unprofessional 2 cents: These delicate white flowers seem to be sheltering the tomb stones. This is a very romantic picture, how to capture it? I would say.. show more of the tomb stones, change the camera angel to not be as sharp as it is, but still not dead on. How would that look?