One "Good" shot. One "Bad" shot. What went right? What went wrong?

[Shinden]

So, back in February, I took these two shots, I just got the photos back from development the other day. I shared some of the shots with my friends, and I noticed that people loved the shot with the headlights turned off, but were not so drawn to the one with the headlights turned on. I liked the way the car stands out a bit more with the headlights on and I also like the reflections on the side of it and on the pavement in front of it, but the photo just is overall not as attractive. What did I do right in the headlights off photo, and what did I do wrong in the headlights on photo? I'm still learning this, but I want to shoot cars more, so I've been practicing with my own whenever I have time.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.

 

[NS: Nikon Shooter]

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I do prefer the shot with the headlights on, they give it dynamic and
I like the way the light meter reacted to the extra light rendering a
more realistic environment.

The fact that you do not yet understand all that is going on in any gi-
ven shot does not implies you did something wrong. Keep going!

 

[PJM]

Headlights on for me, for sure. As NS says, it makes it more dynamic. I also like the bit of color they add. Aside from dynamic I think it is an overall better composition. The angle it was taken from allows for more detail and feeling of depth behind the car. Nice shot.

 

[cgw]

Honestly? Kill the color cast or better, perhaps, go for b&w and work for a noir-ish mood. Night shots usually require a contrast boost to increase perceived sharpness. The old Nik plug-ins are still free for download and worth grabbing. Their Silver Efex Pro 2 plug-in will allow huge scope for taking this up a few notches.

This is a very quick edit with Silver Efex Pro 2

 

[weepete]

The difference I see immediately is in the ice on the car and snow in the first, where the second the bright headlights, the road reflection, and the warm colour draws the eye too much, so it kills the detail of the frost. The position of the car is slightly more pleasing in the first, but I think the big issue is the discordance of the bright lights and warm colour.

 

[Shinden]

I find it interesting that when I showed these to non-photographers, the headlights off was liked more, but with photographers, generally the headlights on is preferred. I realize that I should learn to edit my photos with more than just cropping, which I have done with these, but I presented them here uncropped as that's the way I had presented them to people before. The BW adjustments are cool, makes it feel more like winter without all the green. I'm thinking the green comes from the cold film and long exposure, but I'm still not sure. I need to try changing some variables to know for certain.
What I'm understanding is that the added color and contrast from the headlights on photo is better, but it's a bit too much color. While the first one is too flat and the exposure may be off a tad bit rendering the sky to be brighter than it aught, but the composition of the first may be generally slightly more pleasing.
Thanks for the feed back guys. The criticism helps a lot.

 

[weepete]

Yes, it's interesting the difference between photographers, and non photographers. Photographers will instantly recognise the car to be the subject, so adding the headlights as visual weight instantly pulls more attention to the car. Non photographers will not really know why one appeals over the other, but IMO it's likely to be detail that draws their eye, and it also has a bit more colour harmony.

Here's a couple of videos that I found useful:

 

[Shinden]

Thanks I'm going to try to apply some of the stuff from those videos in the future.

 

[smoke665]

Headlights on. It might be that the street lights in the back of the first shot are closer to the car. In any composition the brightest spot always draws the eye first. In the one with the lights on the back lights are more distant, but still really bright, causing the eye to wander back and forth. Hurting both shots is the space on the left side, it's really cramped. As one example above B&W can be used to emphasis tonal differences, but in this shot IMO color grading and editing make the second the better choice. As in:

 

[jeffashman]

Nice! I like the B&W

 

[Shinden]

A few days ago, I decided to see what I could do with editing after seeing all of the good constructive criticism and the example edits a couple of you made for me. I loaded up Gimp, and started playing around with the items from the color drop down. This was mostly me going through and learning, but also me looking at each thing I was doing and saying, does it look better with this change or not? So Here is what I ended up with. I like it a lot more than the original version. I kind of went almost BW, but kept most of the color in the lights.

Then I took the criticism about the lights on the right side of the frame into consideration and decided to try and crop it. I think this turned out pretty well, but the aspect ratio is... weird.

There is definitely still a little bit of color in the red brick building, but it's mostly black and white. I like how the lights stand out even more despite being the same brightness and same overall color saturation as before. The color of the headlights and running lights in the lower grill have changed a bit, but the orange flashers are the same as their original color, but the ends of the flairs coming off of them are white.
This was a good learning experience. I wonder if you think I did a good job with this as it's my first time editing. For me, I think that it is at least an improvement, and if nothing else I have learned a whole lot from this thread. Thanks guys.