General Composition Question

[Michael_2010]

What would it take to make the following shot interesting? On the ground it looks very impressive, neglected and begging to tell a story. In my camera it looks like a dilapidated building that needs to be bulldozed. What tricks do you experienced shutterbugs employ on something like this?



Camera Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi

Exposure 0.004 sec (1/250)
Aperture f/11.0
Focal Length 10 mm
ISO Speed 200
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash No Flash

[LeeR]

I never cease to be amazed at how many people ignore light when taking photographs. After all, photography means "light writing" and yet people fail to notice that the key element in all photographs and the role it plays in their images.
Time of day: You will often hear old photographers say that the best time to shoot is an hour after sunrise and an hour before sunset. As a matter of fact we call these the "golden hours." While it is true that I have been successful in getting some great shots at high noon, but for the most part the old axiom is true; the warm angular light near sunrise and sunset is often the best.
Overcast: A surprisingly great time to shoot some things is when it is overcast. If you look carefully you will notice that some colors, especially some shades of green, look brighter and more intense when it is overcast. This is also a great time to do portraits; the soft light models the planes of the face in a pleasing way without the harsh shadows of direct sunlight.
In your image you have lighting that is a great deal like overcast in that there are no shadows to speak of. This helps to reinforce the rather moody feeling of the old abandoned building. Yet at the same time you have a bright blue sky with wispy clouds that seem to speak of happier times. It's a bit inconsistent. If I were you I would do some thinking about what you want this image to say. Do you want it dark and moody or bright and cheery? What kind of light would work best with your vision of the final outcome; soft and dreamy or harsh and directional? I would also think a bit about the angles on the building. Since you are using a wide angle lens (10mm) you are getting some distortion. Does this work in your favor or would you be better off with all the lines vertical?
My theory is that the more you do this slow kind of decision-making when conditions allow prepares you for the situations when you don't have the time and need to make split second decisions.

[Nicole]

I'd also get closer for a start. You want to show impressive and neglected, you said. From this distance I don't get the impressive feeling. So I'd start by getting closer to help it feel a bit larger, a bit more looming, a bit more impressive. Then to show the neglect, I'd also try to get closer for that as well. Are there broken windows? Is there rust? Decay? Vines? All things I can't really see from this distance (Ok, I can see the vines, but still). I also agree with what Lee says about time of day. Maybe it's just the sunny day, but I think that also changes the feeling to me. But I think my main suggestion for composition is to get closer. You've got the ultra wide to take advantage of it, and I think you'll find that you get something a bit closer to what you were looking for.

[dbevisjr]

Hello Michael, I'm not experienced by any means but was wondering if maybe B&W would work for this.

[Michael_2010]

Strange, everything is soaking wet from the rain. Nothing cheery about it in the least. It had just let up after I got out of my truck and there was some clearing to the north as more clouds were rolling in from the south.

I understand about the golden hours, but that sure is limiting. That leaves us with about two hours of shooting time and those hours are separated by a whole day! lol

This was a home that was built to resemble a castle complete with a corbelled corner turret. It was gutted by Katrina a few years ago, yet it still stands there looking out toward the gulf. The windows are boarded up with NO TRESSPASSING signs affixed. I understand getting closer to highlight unique elements, but how would you go about displaying the whole structure in its setting and still have an interesting shot?

[Michael_2010]

Originally Posted by dbevisjr

Hello Michael, I'm not experienced by any means but was wondering if maybe B&W would work for this.

Thanks, B&W might give it a little something it is missing. One thing for sure, I won't be back over that way at sunrise/sunset any time soon.

[LeeR]

There are a lot of things that can be done to an image like this in PP but it takes years to learn what works and what doesn't. You can ask, but the only real way to learn is to try different things until you learn how they work and what they do. I would prefer that you made as many good decisions as possible BEFORE you press the shutter button. It's a very bad habit to assume you can fix everything in PP; better to get it right in the first place. However, once you develop some skills in PP there is quite a lot you can do.
Below I did a bunch of things and won't mention them all. The most important are the following; desaturated all the colors but red/orange, laid in a gradient to darken the sky, dodged in the building so it stood out a bit better and changed the perspective to get rid of some of the angles. There are plenty of other strategies for making this into an interesting image but this is my quick and dirty example. With a bit of practice you should be able to do much better.

[Michael_2010]

The change in the sky alone made a huge difference, imo. Starts to take on that stereotypical castle on a hill feel I hoped to portray. Albeit, on a much smaller scale.

The reason I posted my queries in this section of the forum has to do with learning how you guys think on locations. We can’t always be presented with the best lighting conditions, backdrops, or even subject matter, but we might need to get the shot for one reason or another.

In this case, I was traveling from point A to point B and stopped by this property along the way. I wanted to give some feel for the size of the waterfront lot and display the building as well, hoping to do so in a way that might at least provoke some curiosity. When I got home, I realized the photo was rather dull and extremely average.

So, I hoped some of you would allow me to get into your heads and experience your thought process, if you were faced with a similar setting and conditions.

[Michael_2010]

Also, I gather that the converging vertical lines do not portray height in this instance. Was that a difficult post-processing fix?

[RecurrentNerve]

Here's a B&W conversion with a similar perspective correction as LeeR's version. This was done in GIMP - seperated the sky and the foreground into separate layers, adjusted levels, then duplicated and set layer modes to Overlay to increase contrast. Added a little vignette for good measure.

Perspective correction is very simple. Not sure what software you have but it's similar in GIMP, Ps and PSP - select the whole image and Transform/Distort, drag the corner handles to adjust.