Morning in the garden

[Ludwig]

Your opinion, comments, suggestions are most welcome.

[Geoff F]

For me, Ludwig, you are trying to show too much here; and the back of the garden (top of photo) is very dark with little detail or interest.

I would crop out the top and right side to concentrate more on the interesting colourful foreground plants.

[Tim Bond]

Ludwig,
I visited your Cafe page this afternoon. There are some really nice photos there. The choice here is do I do individual flowers, which you do very well, or do I take the garden as a whole. Straightening the wall will help for a start. However it seems that the biggest distraction is what appears to be a sprinkler running on the right side. I do like the contrasts they help to set off the smallness of the garden. It would be worth a trip back.
Tim

[Ludwig]

Thank you Geoff and Tim,
The last two days were cloudy in the morning, so the garden lacked the sunlight, however, I have an earlier photo. This one was taken prior to the one above and before the sprinkler came on. It is also closer. It seems to be preferred by others, so please take a look. One other good thing about it is, the whites are not blown out as in the first one. So what was I thinking? I liked the larger view and the light on the stones. Geoff is right, I was trying to show too much. Thank you for your comments.

[Geoff F]

Yes much better, Ludwig.

But I would also experiment, on a suitable day, to try and show the wall as well. You can afford to lose a bit of the background if you can get the texture, and brightness, correct on the wall.

[Ludwig]

In response to pretty much the same suggestions from my friends at Photo-Focus I re-processed the first image, toning down the wall. Here is that photo:

Thank you for your critiques - photography is one of the activities were practice does not make perfect - critiques and criticisms help to see and visualize better.

[Geoff F]

But that is a little too dark for me. I think a reshoot with careful attention to exposure is required.

You might get away with two shots at different exposures then combine them as layers and masks. Sometimes called 'hand made HDR'. A tripod would help.

Alternatively, a Raw shot exposed for the brightest area then converted into two different 'exposures' and combined; once again, layers and masks are needed.