Castlerigg Stone Circle, Keswick, Cumbria

This is a photograph of Castlerigg Stone Circle in the English Lake

District, popularly known as "The Druids Circle" and first

constructed in the Bronze Age, about 3500 years ago. I wanted to

capture some of the mystique and bleakness of this place and

deliberately chose to under expose in the hope of achieving that kind

of feeling. I chose a particularly wet and windy morning to take the

circle's picture and hit the shutter release just as the sun low in

the east, stroked a couple of fast racing clounds. I was inspired to

take it in this way after seeing the work of an English photographer

named Paul Wakefield in Jan Morris's book "Ireland: Your Only Place",

(pub. 1990)(a book I examine frequently) in which Mr Wakefield used

extensive areas of black or near blackness in colour photographs to

convey the haunting beauty of Ireland's remotest landscapes.

I have hesitated in posting this picture before today (17 Nov 2001)

because of the obvious under exposure and risk of storms of derision,

but considered Critique Forum to be an ideal place to check whether I

had managed to portray this place in the way I believed it needed to

be.

I look forward to your reasoned opinion and marks. Thank you very

much indeed to everyone.

Lovely new photos Phil,this one certainly has a mystery feeling to it

You've got this on the nail, Phil! Perfectly exposed for that deep dark brooding character you were trying to catch. Just enough light in the clouds to lift the whole picture. Well done.

Any darker would lose detail, but any lighter would lose the mood. I think you hit it spot on.

Despite the subject being so popular to the extent that it's cliche (at least for me) I find your photo pleasing to look at; it looks more like a painting than a photograph. Well done.

I still think litter(+1/3 EV) will be better.

The brooding sky and the foreboding scene are excellent. I wonder how it would have looked if the foreground was lit slightly more?

Why is it so dark ? For my personnal taste it's too dark.

Brilliant ! Really outstanding, and totally the kind of lanscape I could hang on my walls ! Too dark, said somebody... Not in my opinion. Not at all. I feel the darkness really increases tremendously the drama... Any brighter, and it would be as much weaker in my opinion...

If I had something to comment on, about this very perfect image, it would be as follows:

Let's assume we would want even more drama in the image - AND THAT'S CERTAINLY NOT A MUST -, then maybe the camera level could be lowered by, say, 15 or 20 cm, and the camera angle could (not sure) go up slightly... It wouldn't make a major difference, but we would see a bit more sky, and a bit less of the ground, which would flatten the image, place the stones at the back closer to the line suggested by the " Golden means " rule and make them stand as " the heroes ". It would also unbalance a bit the whole thing, and make it less symetrical, less quite, therefore more dramatic. Being of a curious nature, I feel like to see what difference it would make, but the quite interpretation you chose of such a tourmented scenary is really fascinating. Congrats.

What a pleasure to discover my friend Phil Morris here with a huge collection of his perfect landscapes, I have staretd by this one, a true masterpiece.

Wonderful place, beautiful picture. I agree with the underexposure here. Maybe the bottom lh corner is a little too dark.

Oh dear, I can imagine this as a large print and it looks great! I love the darkness here. The subtle colours and the texture of the grass look great. The composition is beautiful too. This looks very mysterious and I almost start feeling cold just from looking at it. Cold in a pleasant way... I'd love to walk around there!