Historic Gateway

[NgaiHill]

This is a picture of a carved archway over the entrance to a walkway on a peninsula near home. The place has historic significance to the local Maori people and the views are just fantastic.
I was trying for a different angle here so the camera is hand held at ground level looking up at the archway. The stone curve in the foreground is carved of limestone and the archway attached to this.
What do you think? Does the angle work? Its quite a wide archway and the photograph it straight on was just too boring. Is the limestone carving in the foreground too distracting?
A little pp work has been done, mainly on contract and colours but am mainly interested in comments regarding composition and overall effect of the shot.

EXIF info:
Canon EOS 1000D
18-55mm kit lens
Shutter: 1/128 sec
Aperture: f 7
Focal length 18 mm
ISO: 200

[jpitz31]

Before you start thinking about composition and overall effect you should really look at where your camera is focusing and where part of the image you want in focus.

The limestone I would assume is the central point of focus. If you look closely the entire limestone is out of focus. Sometimes the camera gets confused on what to focus on. You the photographer sometimes have to use the focus lock to focus on the central point of the image then move the camera while holding the shutter button half way down and reposition the camera for the final composition and take the picture.

You must be watching for this in the viewfinder while shooting.

Learn to see what your camera is seeing.

Thanks

Joe