Crop or not II: Would you crop this? If so, how?

[vonnagy]

I took this shot yesterday and really liked it. It was funny because my natural tendency would be to crop, but in this case I really liked the original. I had originally hated the sign on the far left, but now i kinda like it. Yes, I know the photo is a bit dark, but i'll go back and adjust that later.

Anways, heres the original:

And the various crops:

In your personal opinion, is there a particular crop that you prefer or is the noncropped best? If you see another cropping from the original pic, feel free to take the picture and show me in this thread.

 

[Dew]

i like the 4th one best .. with the sign clone-stamped out .. i like the "free-edge" over there to the left

 

[jack]

yea , me too -- #4 and the original/

thats very nice mark !

 

[jack]

for me, it's the distant tree on the right that i find
would be better-off out the picture.

 

[Jeff Canes]

#4 for me too, but crop that sign out

 

[Not Neve]

I like the space on the left if you could remove the sign without cropping. I like how you cropped the bottom (in #4) but I love the sky in the original.

 

[Mitica100]

I like, I like...

The original seems to be more powerful somehow. Have you tried cropping so the final result is square? Not a lot of square cropped pictures out there, so this could be a great candidate.

I would try eliminating the sign, seems a bit distractive. Also, perhaps the mound on which the big tree sits atop should be cropped from the left, just about where the other tree comes up. I like the foreground, stark and menacing, shouldn't make it too light. The little tree far to the right can be included in a square crop, I think it generates some sort of 'dialogue' between the big tree and the latter one. Try a few and let us know how it's coming up.

I like the atmosphere of the original a lot and I think that a good crop should retain it.

Just my ideas...