Built Upon The Rock

[gitim4God]

This is a photo of a historical landmark near Allenspark, CO, I really like the look of the ols stone church but I don't think I did it justice. I made an attempt at HDR processing using a single RAW photo and photoshop. It came out okay, but I had to crop it quite a bit, the sky seems a bit blown out and there are a couple of sun spots I don't know how to remove.

From 00 FAVORITE PICTURES

Exif data
Camera - Nikon D70
Exposure mode - Auto
Focal length - 18.0mm
Lens - 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5
Max Aperture - f/3.5
Shutter speed - 1/250
Aperture - f/10
ISO - 200

How did I do?

[Peggyjom]

wow, very neat subject.Maybe you crop out the lower sun spot, the upper one isn't terribly distracting. I am not a huge HDR fanbut this is nice!

[wal]

like the composition of the overall picture.. not a hdr fan too, but, I guess it works well for pictures like these... highighting the church against all the greens and sky..

[UlpilotSC]

I like it. Not too Overcooked. It looks more like a Kincaid painting or maybe something from a video game cutscene than a real photograph. Nice look. The composition works, overall, even though you expect a landscape to be more horizontal than vertical. Have you tried cropping just below the sticks in the creek? The grass in the foreground is a little distracting.

[xxrayna]

If you're using photoshop you can probably use the spot healing tool to remove the sunspot.

Overall, I like this photo but as someone who lives in Colorado, the color seems off in this photo. Was this taken in the middle of the day? The blue in the sky seems dull and the grass seems overly saturated.

[gitim4God]

Yes, it was taken in the afternoon and yes the colors aren't Colorado-ish. Since this was and HDR experiment I wasn't really going for natural. I'm sure it would have been better if I could have taken the photo close to sunrise or sunset, unfortunately I was only home for a short visit. Hopefully I will get it right next vist! I will try the spot healing tool, thanks!

[SwissJon]

I think this would be better if you cropped it so the church was at the lower 1/3rd mark.. Perhaps cropping square. The water in the forground would then lead the eye into the photograph better.. As it is, you've too much foreground with no points of interest, losing that can only improve the photo.

[Krusty79]

I think part of the problem is that your subject is fairly dark and the foreground and sky are relatively bright. Since your eye naturally goes to the lightest part of the image, that presents some difficulty drawing attention to your subject. I think cropping some of the foreground will help.

I was also thinking this might make a good B&W.

[gitim4God]

Hey thanks I am going to try both recommendations!

[gitim4God]

Okay, here is the crop I decided to use, I think it is a little better but the sky is still too bright and some of the dark areas are too dark. What do you think, better or worse?

I tried B&W also but couldn't make it look right at all, I think because there are really bright and really dark areas but I'm not sure. Tomorrow I will attach the original photo so you can see what I started with.

Thanks for the recommendations!
Tim
Soli De Gloria

Feel free to edit this photo