Opinions please

[arbits]

First photo post here so hope it works. The first few people who saw this image were quite complimentary with comments like ooh and it would make a nice postcard. Someone else was pretty scathing and hated it.

Personally I think the edit turned a boring photo of a church into something with more character and interest. It is supposed to look like a print from an etching if that doesn't come across. What do you guys think?

[billtils]

My immediate feeling on viewing this (before reading the text) was that what could be an interesting treatment of the church was spoiled because of the very dark and somewhat less than attractive tree that takes up the whole of the right hand side. My eye was drawn to the doorway but it doesn't look like there is a negotiable path leading to it which diminishes its effectiveness.

Having read the text, yes it does look like a print from an etching.

[Geoff F]

Personally, I'm not keen on the vignette effect and I agree with Bill that the tree has more importance than the church. Maybe crop the right side to give a square or 4 x 5 ratio image? But it depends what want from this scene.

Otherwise, it looks OK to me.

[Manfred M]

I'm very much of the same view as Geoff and Bill; while the effect does work, the tree overpowers the scene I also find that the cross is an important element that does not show particularly effectively. The negative vignette is quite irregular and that ends up being quite distracting.

The shadow of the tree that falls on the walk destroys the leading lines impact that one might expect to see here. If that area had been dodged before the woodcut / etching effect had been applied.

All that being said, would you mind posting the original colour image so that we can see the "boring photo" you mention. Another thought that I had is that you mentioned that some people loved it and others were less complimentary; what was their level of photographic knowledge? I have often found that experienced photographers quite often look at images quite differently than others.

[MrB]

The part of the image which immediately grabbed my view is the seemingly dazzling bright wall on the left, where much of the typical flint texture isn't as evident as it is in the other walls.

Philip

[arbits]

All that being said, would you mind posting the original colour image so that we can see the "boring photo" you mention.

Minimally processed from raw below. I say boring because IMO it is hard for an outside photograph of a typical English village church to be interesting. It was just a snap as we were walking around. I still think I did a pretty good job salvaging something from it although with hindsight and more care I would have dodged out the strong diagonal shadow on the path.




This was about 100 yds further on