Windsor Barn

Great capture

Gianluigi

PDE

Ah to be at the right place at the right time and knowing what to do with all your equipment.  A wonderful shot.  Inky dark sky, brilliant white clouds  and a great tonal scale...  Has A.A. come back?

The title of this photograph is "Windsor Barn."  The problem with this photograph is there is not enough barn and too much of everything else. The barn, in fact, is pushed to one side while everything else take dominance.

The everything else is either boring or distracting or both.  The grass in the foreground is boring.  This is because there is too much of it.  A little less grass would have been fine, of course, as this is the countryside.  There is also too much fence.  It underlines the distance mountains that are distracting.  They are also not really interesting as mountains go.  Then we have the overwhelming sky.

There is too much sky.  It is dramatic and pulls our attention away from the Windsor Barn.  On top of that, the sky, rendered that way with a red filter or whatever, is a photographic cliche.  The high contrast dark sky with ominous clouds works in some cases--usually where it is the subject or somehow works either in calculated harmony or dissonance with something else.  In this case the sky is annoying.

Also I sense the whole scene is tilting to the left--clouds, mountains, fence, grass and barn.  The little bitty man seems almost to be fighting against it like someone walk up an elevator going down.  

But the photographer should not despair.  Landscape photography is popular.  So much is forgiven it by people who would not know the difference between an Ansel Adams and a George Adamski, or a silly willie :-)