Untitled

comments and critiques appreciated...

IMO I would have liked to see more clarity in the picture with focus and sharper contrasts.

This is a good image. For one thing, it is well balanced ( Blance by recognition, element contrast emphasis), The cultural content is completed by the presence of the arcitectural code and the cotrast of these two traditional buildings and the framed modern tower in the distance id really a beauty. The white balance adjustment has produced warm atmosphere which goes perfectly with the content. I said well balanced. well-balanced all right, but the gripe here is that human elements are obviously looking at something interesting which the viewer dies to see but can't; in other words, you are telling a story, but you are showing the viewer something else. This weakness is a serious one which often occures with the scenes in which human elements exist. The photographer becomes so spooked with the eye-catching elements in the scope that he forgets altogether that the first thing that the viewr's eyes go to is the human presence and the ensuing curiosity in why. Thats why I often steer away from shots with human elements incorporated which demends a thorough focus to include the whole cycle of completing the story which I am not so good at or don't often feel like getting into. The problematic lighting condition has also caused shadow clipping and noise probably which I guess you have worked on to remove, causing softness in the bright parts. For the higher dynamic range and to avoid shadow clipping you could take three seperate shots with different lighting: One in spot metering mode with the camera pointing to the shadows, another one to a midtone area, and the last one to the bright spots; then you could merge the stack in photoshop CS3 in Merge to HDR to get a High Dynamic Range image.