architecture The old bank

Très belle composition. Je note qu'il y a sur presque toutes tes dernières photos une grosse dominante de rouge un peu trop puissant. Il faudrait l'atténuer avec un peu de jaune. C'est dû au film Agfa ?

Non, c'est l'éclairage artificiel au sodium haute pression qui présente ici ces teintes de rouge orangé. Il n'y a pas grand chose à faire contre. Ce sont les joies de la photo de nuit.

The pentagonal UFO at the upper left is distracting, and the blue bit is fascinating (I do so want to know what it is) and in general, I very much enjoy the way the profoundly warm color plays across the facade here. The deliberately diagonal composition works well. It would be easy to take boring photos of this building. This particular photo is not boring. Well done. (P.S. I just had to come comment on this since you put it into the thread about why people are giving up on rating pictures. -Jim)

You can't imagine the visual clutter around this building: street

lamps, trees, signs, you name it. It took me many visits in its

vicinity to find an angle that worked. I'm pleased form the results,

but the few comments I recieved mentionned the flare and the small

blue reflection as distractions. What do you think?

 

I usually try as hard as I can to avoid flare, but when it shows up in

the picture, I'm paradoxically pretty happy with it and don't want to

correct it in Photoshop. For me, it somehow makes the picture more

"authentic". Any thoughts on this? When you you correct/choose not to?

I can imagine the contortions you went through to get this shot. I appreciate the angle and the composition that takes advantage of the converging lines from the 24mm lens. The colors are great as well.

 

 

I usually only tolerate flare when shooting into the sun at a subject with strong backlight (such as a backlit portrait) where it doesn't detract from the main subject and sometimes even adds to the sense of spontaneity of the photo. I normally wouldn't like it in an architectural shot but it really doesn't bother me here-- maybe because it is at night.

 

 

The blue light, however, does bother me. Unlike the flare, it does appear out of context and drew my eye immediately. I don't think it ruins the shot but it sure would be nice if it wasn't there. I don't PhotoShop such things out and would probably grudgingly make another trip to the location to try it without the light-- only because the rest of the shot is so good.

 

 

What was the light, anyway?

I really like the composition which is why I hate to say that the flare does bother me. It draws the eye away from the strong lines for me even more than the blue light, although I find that as well with larger sizes.

 

I think this is right on the border of photoshop usage for a lot of people if you were considering it. I guess it could depend in part on what you're going to do with the final output.

I was on the fence until I went to the large version and now have to say the flare bothers me. The blue light does not.

 

That said, I think you really hit it with not only this perspective, but taking the shot at night. You have the shades of the warm orange glow, but you also have the pitch black sky to trap the eye once it has moved up the photo.

The flare definitely breaks up the long lines that make this image so graphically strong. That being said, I can understand your reluctance to start photoshopping things out of the picture. Of course if this type of thing happened on some commercial job, that lens flare would be photoshopped out very quickly before it was ever presented to the client...but to me the challenge of editing in camera while you compose the shot is not only challenging, but supremely satisfying as well. I think you did a great job on this image!...perfect?...not quite...but close.

I was shooting with a friend, who was supposed to provide some shade with his body to avoid the flare - I guess he moved at the last minute. It's not easy to provide shade that way and to stay out of the frame with a 24 mm lens.

 

OK, the general feeling is that the flare is distracting and the blue thing as well (it's a reflection of nearby sign in a window). Both things are easy to clone out in PS and although I prefer to get things right the first time, I don't mind minor cosmetic alterations.

 

Thank you for the input.