How would you shoot this?

[SmartWombat]

Calvaire, cap Gris Nez, France.
I chose to go wide, and to focus on the cross, not the mosaic in the shelter.
What would you do?

[freygr]

Wide to me is a Panorama

Nice photo

[Grandpaw]

Whichever way you go, I would get rid of the jet trail, Jeff

[n8]

hdr, that's what I would do. good luck on that contrail.

[Asmarlak]

It looks fine except that I think it is tightly cropped/framed in top and bottom. I'd also lighten the shadows and increase the contrast a little.

[jetrim]

A bunch of options here. I like what you have, but shooting in portrait orientation losing the building completely would also be cool. Dropping down to ground level and shooting up, getting rid of most of the gravel would add a lot of power to the statue. A wider aperture would turn the shelter into a mosaic of blurred colors. All depends what you want to do with the image.

Bit baffled by Asmalark's suggestion as dynamic range and contrast are mutually exclusive - can't add both at the same time. But maybe I just don't understand what he meant...

[Asmarlak]

Bit baffled by Asmalark's suggestion as dynamic range and contrast are mutually exclusive - can't add both at the same time. But maybe I just don't understand what he meant...

You sure can. I meant to bring out the shadow details and then fix the contrast. Contrast is not only between the light and the dark, almost everything could effect the contrast including color saturation and sharpness.

Sorry Paul, I had to edit it to show what I mean.

[Anbesol]

Good edit, while a little overdone. But, I think thats not what Paul was asking, not how we would edit them, but how we would choose to shoot this certain scene.

And I would try to get as far away as possible and shoot at 400mm, to compress the size of the cross to the size of the building. Basically, I would do the opposite of what you just did, lol.

[Franglais]

I would leave a little more space above the top of the cross. And leave out the nose of the car in the background

Apart from that I would shoot super-wide with lots of sky the way you have done. Cap Gris Nez is that sort of place, all sky and air. It's on top of white cliffs looking over the English Channel with (usually) a strong breeze blowing in. Invigorating.

This calvaire looks new. I've never seen it before but then I haven't been there for 5 years or so.

[Axle]

I would shoot that exactly the way you did, but I'd probably use slide film, E100G or Fuji Astia :P

Asmarlak's edit is really good as well.