Mossy Brick wall

[Nieton21]

(level: Beginner)
I took this the other day, I really like how the mossy brick came out i was going for a shallow depth of field so you would focus on the great colors and contrasts in the moss and stone. The only problem is I am not a big fan of the background, the blownout area in perticular. I thought I could crop it but I like the fact that it shows distance. Not really sure what to do with this, any suggesttions

Settings:
Exposure: 1/20th sec
Aperture: F/5.6
Focal Length: 43mm
iso speed: 100
Mode: Aperture Priority

[Jaysfan8]

Hi, I like the idea of the shot. It leads nicely into the image. Great colour - really jumps out at you. Have you fiddled around in photoshop using the clone tool to copy the ivy across the rest of the image?

[Nieton21]

here is some (fast) cloning. I personally prefer it before because I feel that the leaves and ivy make the scene feel much shorter and I liked the depth that was in the scene. If I was going to do this for real I might as well just crop it off at the ivy...thanks for the idea though

[jiminyClickit]

Nieton21,

Dark appears farther away than light; have you given a look at darkening the right side, tree and walkway, unsaturate a bit to lessen impact while keeping the distance suggestion?

[KagoGrl]

Seems I'm a day late in responding to all these new posts - JiminyClickit has beaten me to all of them and often says exactly what I want to say :P

So I'll sort of repeat things here: I agree with you that the right side is bright comparatively to the mossy wall and therefore pulls your eye away from the focal point. As a solution I would have tried the cloning but I agree that it kinda cuts off the wall and therefore draws your attention again because it seems odd. And so I'd move on to JiminyClickit's idea - can you darked the bright spot without cloning over it?

To finish off I'd like to say that I really like the DOF in the shot. It's funny how little things like moss on a stone wall can make such neat shots.

If you play around more with the right hand side I'd like to see what you come up with. Please share it!

[Nieton21]

I tried darkening up the trees and desaturating the whole back area, The blown out area is still pretty blown out and the adjustment layers I used didn't do much to affect it, other then make it a little less blue. I agree it helps keep the distance farther. The one question I keep wondering is, what should I have done differently when I was shooting? Mostly cloudy with some patches of blue, and this area was pretty shaded.

[KagoGrl]

I'm sorry, I'm not going to be able to offer suggestions for shooting next time (I'm too new myself to be of any use to you) but I wanted to say that I like your recent edit... the darkening of the right side allows our eye to travel along the wall but not get blinded or distracted by the brightness.

Well done.

[jiminyClickit]

Nieton21,

Thinking about fog and clouds while doing this. If you want exercise in post, here's your chance. You need to isolate (lasso, select, whatever) the areas in right 1/3 of photo, adjust them while leaving the moss untouched:

[sana]

Nieton, I like the original. It has nice 3 levels of of depth, in different colors. But it misses something. The eye is naturally drawn from the moss in the foreground further away to the distance. And there is nothing much there. If you could only have someone to pose on the road in the distance (or just "shoot" some passenger) I think it would be really great, especially because the person (or an animal?) would be blured, and the eye would be then drawn back to the brick wall because it is focused and covers the biggest part of the picture...

[Nieton21]

Sana, yeah I get what you are saying that is a great idea that I would never have thought of, if there was a person there it might block out a little bit of the harshlights, I will definately keep that in mind next time I'm out shooting. Sadly I was alone and there really wasn't anyone around, and no animals really since this is practically downtown portland. I'm still wondering is there anything other then add a person (great idea btw) I can do to not get so much blowout in that area and still maintain the rich color of the moss?