rails and posts

. . . another option for an upcoming open competition

In my mind this would fare much better in an open competition than "Tree House". This image holds much interest. If it were mine I think I would have cropped the dark vertical bar from the right side and just enough off the bottom to eliminate the dark bottom left corner...leaving the image with only the repetition of similar elements (whites verticals against the blue) and the the dissimilar element of the beautifully contrasting reds. I think with that crop...it would make a great/very challenging puzzle. I like this one.

 

As an aside, I've gone back and revisited "Tree House" several times to see if you added any commentary about your intentions when composing that image...I'm still curious what we missed that you saw.

explanation to 'treehouse' just posted. . . nothing really earthshaking.

Lots of potential, here. I would go for simplicity and the simplest possible pattern, too. Scott's proposed crop would work fine. The big post in the right breaks the pattern is a way that is much less interesting than the red patches.

Nice! As others have pointed out, though, I think the right side should be cropped just inside dark band and the upper and lower left corners could use a bit of dodging to lighten them slightly.

Great patterns. Like the others, I would crop out the bars on the right. I would leave the blue in the lower left hand corner-- the darker blue with red highlights almost looks like it is invading the scene.

 

 

Every time I look at this I think of the American flag. It would be interesting to try cropping it in the middle, keeping the left half, and rotating it 90 degrees clockwise for a bizarre, alternate-universe American flag. Not sure what the message would be but I'm sure that the PN clientele could come up with plenty!

 

 

Very intriguing image.

Would somebody care to post the seemingly unanimous crop being proposed . . because I'm having trouble visualizing it for two reasons. 1) You're left with an orphan in the upper right corner that looks out of scale. 2) my eye keeps going back and forth between the two areas - blue/white vs red/blue whereas the origianl dark blue stripe balances the red area against the white/blue field.

 

The flag idea is interesting. one problem with some of these more severe crops is that it would work only on PN. An 11 X 16 print is already a stretch for my 2700 dpi scanner at full frame.

In addition to the crop, I also dodged the upper and lower left corners to lighten them slightly.

While playing around in Photoshop, I tried also tried this, which I think I like even better...

Here's what I was talking about.

I agree with removing the right, but only becasue it is dark. I'd also actually like to see the whole image a little brighter. Using the original orientation retains the ability to recognize the subject, but I also like Rhett's crop for a more abstract version. I'm sure you'd like to be chosen in the competition more for your merits than for having a patriotic judge.

I'm not an American, and even less a patriot, but I find Rhett's "flag" very cool. Too bad you cannot print it. Perhaps you could have the neg enlarged to some huge size (20x24, that range) and then crop it to 11x14 with a pair of scisors or some cutter.

 

Jeffrey's crops are very close to what I had in mind.

 

 

beautiful reflections & colors!

awesome abstract, love the reflections of the water,, the uniformity of the blue,white,blue,white,blue,white. which is broken apart by the spots of red at the bottom, hmm... red white and blue, with blue and white stripes and red stars.. interesting perspective.. like a new fangled abstractly twisted American flag... hmmm... what does that mean... ok.. enought jabbering about this one.. NEXT!

I like this image as it is. I think the dark area on the right should be there because it adds "Weight" to the image and offsets the rythm and pattern of the whites -- yet the dark area maintains the shimering quality and shows that we live in a world full of relation. That red creeping up from the bottom left corner adds a touch of evil to the festivities and it seems to be going against the grain. This is a fine abstract image.