Firle Place

Good job overall.

Suggestions for improvement: I found myself checking the shadows on this one. I expected to see more of a shadow area on the section of the building featured on the left half of the photo. Also, I think that this one might look a little better for you if it was shot at a different time of day.

Maybe a slight underexposure, or other darkening of the picture, might help.

One of the the elements that I think "makes" this photo would be a sharp line where the green of the grass meets the gray of the stone in the walls. Because the way the shadows fall, the only thing I can think to suggest is to try to make another shot of this at a different time of day.

Time of day change might also help one of the other things that was nagging at me a little bit: the sky. I think I can see from the pattern of highlights that it appears that the sun is at camera right, probably shining towards the camera setup. Camera at your back might help; especially if this building is located in a place where pinkish tones can fall on it during the golden hour.

I think this is a good photo; I just try to offer some improvement suggestions to everybody I critique, when I can.

Strong areas in the photo include: use of diagonals along the garden wall. Good textural details in the wall and the building; I can tell there are well-defined stones there, not blurs. Even though the subject is in a bright white light, I can still see details like: hue variations in the garden flowers, shape and texture in the lawn, some window details in the building.

If you can get the time of day adjusted, I think you might have an "excellent" photo on your hands.

Overall, good photo. I think time of day affected the lighting plan a bit, though. Good luck. J.

John - many thanks your for kind and thoughtful comment.

You are right, the main issue is with the strong sun and time of day. I admit to a touch of HDR to brighten up the building and the wall - the contrast was too strong due to the slightly off-back lighting. Different time of day would be best, but alas, I only had one chance to go to this place and this is what I ended up with :-)

Thanks again

Daniel

Lovely photo. Very beautiful landscape. It strikes me as just a little odd that there is no shadow on the left side, but you mentioned correcting that with HDR... I'm not so sure if I like it or not. It gives good detail to the builiding. But something seems not quite right about it. I think maybe it's because you still have shadows from the stone fecne. Anyway, you mentioned this was taken with very strong light... The sky is really what gets me here, especially on the right. It feels a little too overexposed. It's just an idea, but I would try another edit focusing on correcting the sky just a bit. I did a quick edit to help give you a visual of what I'm trying to describe - words usually escape me. Hope you don't mind. The edit is not the best, just an idea... Great work, keep it up!!