Color and No Color

[fsquare]

As a Canadian i must admit, I omitted the 'u' in color for our American friends.

Here are two shots I took, same area but so completely different. C&C welcome

1.

2.

 

[Samerr9]

I like no2, nice colors and sharpness... but i think it is a little to the dark side.. why not try make it a little brighter?

 

[KenC]

The first looks a little out-of-focus - could it be your camera auto-focused on the gate instead of the closer wall? The latter would have been a better choice because it is a bigger part of the image and has some fine detail. It's a little low in contrast because, other than the lights, the highlights are not close to white.

The second is a good shot, but just sort of a record shot of someone's artwork unless you abstract part of it to create a new image. As is, I would brighten as suggested previously, but just the lighter areas.