Night Shots

[cessna7686]

**Read the rules again and redid my post, sorry**

I took this photo of the Rocky statue at the Philly Art Museum. I had some lens flare that required me to do a few adjustments. I changed the levels and I used some cloning and healing to remove the flares which occured above Rocky and directly to the right of the tree. I'd like some critique on how well I removed those flares (is it pretty obvious to a trained eye that a lot of work was done on it?). Also thoughts on the levels would be appreciated.

This was taken with a Canon T3 18-55mm kit lens, 20 second shutter, f/11

Thanks!

[NathanFranke]

It's hard to tell with the jpg compression, but there might be a bad clone job straight above Rocky's right hand, or it could be how the jpg rendered on my screen. Hard to say if you did a good job or not. Except for that, nothing jumps out about the flare. In some situations, flare helps. I'd like to see a before version.

As for composition, there's a flagpole sticking out of Rocky's hand. Looks like he's holding a stick. Also, it's hard to say what the subject of the photo is. There are too many competing objects--Rocky, the other stuatue, the building, the tree--the eye goes all over the place. There was an article on the front page recently about an easy tip for better photographs: get closer. Isolate your subject, and I think you'll have a more compelling image.

[cessna7686]

Thanks for the advice! I definitely see your point about moving closer to Rocky, my goal was to have him as the focus of the picture but I did want to include the Art Museum in the background since the two sort of go hand in hand. Maybe next time I'll try shooting from a different angle as well as getting closer. I have attached the unedited version so you can see the difference. (By the way, I am using the term lens flare correctly, is that what the purple/yellow light is?)