New Orleans Skyline - Would Love C&C

BlueCobalt · Aug 23, 2013

a shot i took a few weeks back. on the east bank of the Mississippi river looking to the NOLA sky line. although im curious why the locals call it the west bank when it is east of the city. would love some C&C

BlueCobalt · Aug 26, 2013

dsiglin · Aug 26, 2013

Surprised no one has commented on this. I did a quick edit to show my thoughts. The brightness of the grass behind her kept grabbing my attention from the beautiful skyline so I darkened that. I also cropped out the derlict water tower, in photoshop I added a light blue layer in "overlay" mode to brighten but also tie things together with an overarching color. I also very badly edited the shoreline. The way her head intersected the shore bothered me. I think you did a fantastic job with the colors.

Eclectix · Aug 26, 2013

I must have missed this one. I like what dsiglin did, but honestly I prefer the original, warts and all. I see the sculpted, clean lines and bright lights of the city as seen by those who live on the raw, grungy, weedy outskirts. I think that the foreground trash is actually a good thing in this image.

dsiglin · Aug 26, 2013

Interesting take Eclectix, and yeah that seems to be what BlueCobalt was going for, hard to say without his input.

BlueCobalt · Aug 26, 2013

ya i was going for the look, i was debating taking out the plastic cup and a few other things but i thought it added a little character to image in a kind of what was she thinking kind of way, starring off to city. this was actually taken on 4th of july little after the fireworks. not sure if you know new orleans or not but this is a part of town that is not the greatest so i thought the trash was helping to show a little of that. i was debating the most though was the derelict water tower

ceeboy14 · Aug 26, 2013

You might want to do a color adjustment and tone down the blue cast to all the shoreline lights. In my opinion, the girl does nothing for the shot, nor does the debris.

dsiglin · Aug 27, 2013

It seems if you know about New Orleans and it's socio-economic layout, you "get" the photo. But for those of us who don't it needs to be more obvious the girl is on the down-and-out side of the world staring at all the glitz. I think if you make it more obvious, maybe by having her sitting on a dilapidated dock or similar surroundings, the image will resonate well.

JosephCarter · Aug 27, 2013

I think the girl is too well dressed to give a 'down and out' feeling to it. Knowing nothing about New Orleans, I just see this as a nice composition of a pretty girl looking at a pretty city on a clear night.

I like the general composition and idea, and I also like the edit by dsiglin.. particularly the addition of the 'light blue overlay' which adds a nice ambiance to the image.

I think the original image could benefit from removing a small chunk of the foreground grass, similar to the amount dsiglin cropped off, I think there's just a bit too much foreground than is necessary, and removing it will also enhance the panoramic feeling the image already has, which I like.

I find the water tower mildly distracting, but I think it also helps balance out the composition adding some weight to the right side, so I'd probably keep it in..

Derrel · Aug 27, 2013

The water tower is the anchor for the entire mid-ground! Removing that element just KILLS the image.

dsiglin · Aug 28, 2013

The tower does help balance, but it's also distracting as JosephCarter points out. It just gets in the way of portraying a girl on the "wrong side" gazing across at a world farther from her than mere distance can communicate. Its only real purpose is set piece to show "down and out" but it ends up drawing too much attention from letting your gaze wander across the bay with the girl's. This is why I mentioned have "her sitting on a dilapidated dock or similar surroundings" so you can communicate without having a distracting object between the girl and the view she is gazing at. I think the small things in the water do a nice job of keeping the middle ground from being void of anything interesting. Plus, removing it you have the girl as the strongest vertical. That helps focus on her more.