How would you do this?

[Darren C]

This is pretty much the SOOC image, bit of Lightroom to correct the exposure. I'm not trying to be lazy I'm just interested in other's choices. How would you make this pic better?
Crops, conversions to B&W, something magical with the crappy sky?!
Please move me if I'm in the wrong place mods.
1/60
F8
ISO200
26mm

[uavmx]

different angle, different composition, I'd do a mild HDR to get the details back in the sky.

Show us something that we can see by just driving by. Your shot just looks like you walked down the street, turned and snapped. Show us this in a way that we wouldn't expect, or wouldn't see without taking the time.

[RichardTaylor]

Crop it for staters.

[Darren C]

That's what I'm talking about.
One person says 'Crop it for staters'. (Sic)
The other says 'different angle, different composition'. You looked at the picture? I'm not God, I can only shoot what I see!
Okay, a crop would be good...

[redartsjr]

What does (Sic) mean? And I'm guessing SOOC stands for shot out of camera? I'm new to all this so I really dont know what alot of these abbreviations are, but I'm learning. And I'm not sure anyone was implying that your God, I'm not sure where that came from. And thats not true you can shoot things that you dont see. Many times I've taken a picture and when I previewed it on the computer I noticed things in it that I did not see when I took the shot.As far as your shot I have to agree with the others. A different angle maybe. Or even if a cat had walked into the shot it might have given it that little extra some thing.
Rick

[nathanbarlow]

'sic' means that the spelling error in the quote he used was in the original, not his spelling mistake.

I agree witht he comment to show something that you cant see just by driving past. Just another brick house otherwise. I'd be inclided to get up close with a wideangle lens and get some distortion. Id also probably pick a different subject but thats just me.

[iMedia]

Hi not a bad subject but buildings and walls shot straight on tend to look very flat, if you had moved to the left which will show more of the angles of the building it would have come out better and given more life to the shot.
It is always easy to criticise others work but please take this as constructive help.
if you look at our website you ail see what i mean about shooting head on, iMedia Namibia | Photography and Videography Namibia
Cheers Aj

[ajaxcrypto]

What you have here is an old building in the Cottage Gothic style. A close cousin to American Gothic and if your thinking of that famous painting of the same name, your right, it was named after the architecture style. The clues were the roof trim, arched windows and the turret on the right. You also have a lot of distracting elements in the photo, like the gratify on the left and right, rusty fence, yellow traffic cone and excessive signage. Cropping off the gratify would help the composition and A circular polarizing filter would help the sky.

[Darren C]

Thanks for ALL your comments! I agree with pretty much all of them except those about composition. I know there are downsides to the square-on shot but going in close would've made the complexity of the building into just architectural details (& possibly got me run over by a car ).
What I was hoping was that other people would give thoughts on possible PP, cropping,etc. My main aim in taking shots like this is to record these neglected gems before they're demolished, I should've made that clear
This is what I got to with the shot after a bit of PP. I'd hoped there was some humour in a paint supply shop not having been painted since about 1978, maybe not...

[uavmx]

you can still make them something that's interesting to look at while maintaining your aim to record these buildings. No one is going to be interested in a bunch of shots of buildings that are a very boring weak composition. You still have to make it something that's interesting to look at. Be creative! Get off the sidewalk, look around the corner, get close to the building, get further away from the building, anything to make it a more interesting shot. The subject is a cool one, now show us why it is.