I really want to like this one.

Bitter Jeweler · Nov 13, 2012

I like it, but I don't :heart: it. I want to :heart: it.

I can't figure out why I feel so :meh: about it.

Your thoughts?

.

runnah · Nov 13, 2012

B&W with a tighter crop.

dbvirago · Nov 13, 2012

I like it, but I think I'm being pulled in two directions. I would crop the bottom just below the danger sign and the right side to the left of the pipe. For a re-shoot, if there is room, a slightly smaller angle, but I'm guessing there wan't room. My .015

Bitter Jeweler · Nov 13, 2012

Feel free to play with it!

480sparky · Nov 13, 2012

Bitter Jeweler said:
Your thoughts?

You really want me to list all the Code violations?

fjrabon · Nov 13, 2012

I feel like the shadow in the bottom right makes the frame a bit visually unbalanced. The heft in that one isolated area is sort of making you feel a bit uneasy. ANd the navy blue/yellow balance is fairly far off from what most people find aesthetically pleasing with the shutter. I think we either need more shutter, or no shutter. Goethe's classical color theory would say for a balanced photo, you'd want navy blue of something like a 10/2 ratio with the yellow. Obviously this is something like 1/11. Which makes for an unsettling feel again. Finally, I think the vertical frame, combined with the horizontal subject are a bit unsettling, even though it fits correctly.

I think you understand the strong geometric compositional points of the photo as well as the strength of the danger sign composed at the bottom left power point. Which is why you want to love it. I *think* the reasons I stated above are probably why you don't.

KenC · Nov 13, 2012

I had the same feeling when I looked at it. FWIW, here are the things that bothered me. The shutter on the left is distracting, so I would crop most of it. The image gets a little too dark towards the right and the bottom, which makes the pattern fade out a little. It's a too good a find to give up on.

dbvirago · Nov 13, 2012

I don't know - something like this?

Then I wanted to crop out the window upper left, but then I lost too much.

runnah · Nov 13, 2012

Bitter Jeweler · Nov 13, 2012

dbvirago...Yeah, I was running into that same thing of wanting to remove something, but it being too much, and going back and forth...

fjrabon...good point. I was struggling with the blue in the shutters, and wished there was more of it. I didn't want to get rid of it either. I struggled with removing the furthest shutter, but didn't want to lose more blue, if it even reads as blue. Maybe wishfull thinking on my part.

KenC, yeah struggled with the dark brick as well.

runnah...I like this direction...I am torn between the last two, leaning torwards the middle one...I think...I dunno...

I appreciate the edit efforts.

Oh, and no, there was no more room to get a better angle. I was at the gate between the houses, at the corner of the next house. I would have loved to shoot this straight on, but that wouldn't ever happen.

fjrabon · Nov 13, 2012

here was my thought. Like runnah, I thought the only way to really save the color balance issue, but retain the strengths of the photo was to do it as a black and white. I didnt feel like the color added a whole lot to the picture in the first place, so it wasn't a great loss, and eliminated a compositional issue. Secondly I burned some of the foreground brightness, and dodged some of the background darkness. I then used the burn brush to give it a bit of a manually applied subtle vignette. Then I played around a bit with the RGB levels in the BW conversion and upped the contrast a bit, since it's now BW.

I didn't want to crop, since I felt that virtually any crop would kill the compositional strong points of the picture that are the whole point in the first place. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater and all.

Here's the result:

8143277479_bee0c8057e_o by franklinrabon, on Flickr