For your critique: Neon Tips

[PlanetStarbucks]

I was in the oldest bar in the state yesterday. It's an old frontier miner's saloon in the middle of a tiny rural town in northern Utah. It was a really cool place in that sort of rural, unpretentious, earthy way. What caught my eye was the ceiling with little messages written on dollar bills by patrons over the years.

I snapped this shot at 800 ISO. I liked the way the neon light was playing with the ceiling and wanted to capture it. It's one of those photographs that I feel is close, but not quite there. I have left this mostly unaltered from the camera...just a few little tweaks in lightroom for the exposure setting and white balance. Let me know what ya'll think...I have a few thoughts but I'll hold them until I get some second opinions.

 

[The_Traveler]

I think this is an interesting and neatly caught shot.
Inevitably when people look at a picture they look at what is brightest and what is in focus.
Here the sign is captured in its entirety and is in sharp focus and the ceiling is slightly unsharp so the sign is the center of interest.

If you signal to the viewers that the ceiling is your target by making certain the sign is cropped and slightly oof, then the ceiling becomes the center of interest.

 

[KenC]

Agree with this ^^^ - I'd crop out even more of the sign.

 

[PlanetStarbucks]

Thanks fellas...I'm working on some post manipulation to see if it can be improved. It's an uphill battle as the depth of field was too narrow to bring the ceiling into sharp focus. I'll upload a redux when I have something I like, but right now I just have a noisy mess, lol.