Suggestions for improvement request.

[DeadJosh]

This is my third picture with an SLR camera. I was mostly goofing around trying to get used to all the buttons and whatnot, and to my surprise I created a halfway decent picture. The original was kind of bland, so I touched it up a tad with Photoshop (CS4). My question is...what can be done to liven it up further?

Here's the original...



...and here's my edit...



EXIF data:
Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T1i
Shutter speed: 1/40 sec.
Aperture: f/4.5
ISO: 250
Lens: EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS

[utsc2006]

crop out the out of focus bar on the right. it's not helping the picture. Start reading up on composition. What made you take a shot of this? what interested you about it? What are we as viewers supposed to focus on, the branch? the wall?

Good start, keeping shooting!

[dcclark]

First, welcome to DPS and the wonderful world of DSLRs!

Here's my main question for you:

What is this a photo of? The branch? The rebar? The cement? These are all competing for my attention. The branch seems to be in the middle, but it's hidden by everything else around it.

That's the main question to consider, first, when composing the photo.

[ilookalot]

David and utsc hit the nail on the head ,dead josh the only thing i can add is you have the right idear as far as looking for the unusuall or different perspective u just need to practice your composition a bit to get the shot right.oh and wellcome to dps keep checking out dps and your photos will improve in leaps and bounds,i know mine have

[DeadJosh]

Thanks guys...I'll keep those points in mind. You're absolutely right, cropping out the rebar would improve it by far...I'll give that a shot and repost.

[DeadJosh]

Image with the rebar cropped out.

[B..]

Waaaay better with the foreground rebar cropped out. Now I can start making up a story to go with this image.

It's something alive (leafy branch) crawling over the top of something not alive. And as I look further into the photo (good composition!) I see a second instance of something alive (woody branch) crawling over theh top of something not alive.