Attached Link: Castle Coombe Wiltshire 4

I posted a new image of Castle Coombe the 4th in my gallery, I was delighted with the reflections in the river having returned many times to get it right, in my enthusiasm I had perhaps lost concentration to the background and MichelleA pointed out that the white building on the left of the original image did not quite work. I had been looking at the foreground to show a little more of the river to emphasise the reflections. The point is does this image work better cropped or uncropped. There are other images of the same place to see, where not being so distracted work better. Waht do you think?

That's a hard question. Since you've returned many times, I assume you've explored many different angles? If I can be a bit critical, my reaction to BOTH is that the left side looks chopped off. I don't find the white building that ugly, and maybe it provides good contrast; same architectural style, but different materials. But something off further to the left is even uglier and needs chopping off? hmm... maybe if you pulled in close to emphasize the textures the the stonework, and chop off BOTH sides? And maybe an elderly gentleman in a bowler, walking a bulldog? You are right; you do not want to lose those lovely reflections.

Like I told Dan in an IM.....I thought that what was needed was either the whole white building to balance it or none at all....I'm looking at this and it still doesn't feel right to me... Hope you don't mind me playing a bit with this....I grabbed the original and started chopping....

What I did was remove the right...and a bit off the bottom which was distracting to my eye..... I'd still like to see a version of this with the whole white building in it....Heheh! I'm not too demanding am I... ;~)

Yeah I can see what you were on about here but that would be ok if I was photographing the buildings. As you can tell for me lighting is our paint! whilst the buildings and place is beautiful, I was also looking at the great lighting in the little garden to the right on the shrubs and off the front kerb stones. to me the buildings were incidental, included because of the textures and light and shadow.

On my monitor the area on the right is barely visible, I think that may be where part of the problem lies for me. Because the area on the right is dark the points of interest you are pointing out are not visible for me. Therefore my focus becomes the buildings. I did play around with curves in PS, but then the buildings end up with blown out highlights....ahh well.... Still a nice image no matter what... :~)

One danger about posting in the Forum... ;-)

yeah now everybodys happy lol

You should have seen what we did to the llama.

lol @ Misha- that's a mirror image? (interesting effect)what llama? (did I miss it?)

HEHE looks like the house in the middle has horns. Great work Misha No animals were harmed in this production

I really like Danob's buildings. So much character.

Lovely, we will have to team up !! You keep doing this to me! perhaps the original image may work better now with these effects.