Sinister Evening

[Polar01]

Took this Wednesday evening of Toronto from the Islands, had a great sky to work with, I darken it down overall with a Lee 4 stop filter and than used a 2 stop hard grad for the sky to bring it down further more. There are a couple of things that I really like about it, one is the thin slivers of light on the west edges of the builting, also on the stren of the rowboat I think really make it. The other is a haunting sinister overall feel that is keeps me wanting to look at it. I printed it out at 16" x 34" on a rag paper, set it down on the floor stood back and like it more, with the light side it catches the eye drawing you to look, and with the muted tones the other side makes you come in to look. OK you guessed it, I like the picture and getting all artistic about it. Hope it creates a sense of wanting to also draw you in also.

Cheers:

Allan

[JohnnyG]

I'd crop that bit of sun showing through...it really isn't doing anything to "make" the shot. I may also be tempted to crop the trees on the left and put the rowboat in the lower right quadrant intersect. It does put the spire closer to dead center, but with the horizon line below mid-point, I don't think it would hinder as much as the crop would help.

Sinister...maybe "In the Mood," moreso.

[FrankMi]

Hi Allan. It is artistic. The thing that throws it for me is that none of the buildings have any lights. In a normal evening city image, everything would be lit up like a Christmas Tree. Perhaps that is why you call it Sinister as in something evil came this way.

[Colin Southern]

Hi Alan,

Another interpretation might be to crop the sun and horizontally where the building line dips on the left - crop a fair bit under the boat - and brighten & saturate what's left. Might change it from a moody shot to a nice colourful landscape?

[Polar01]

Johnny: thanks for your suggestion, however I feel that the sun or is it the moon, is a very important element in the image, small as it is, it gives a reference to where the light is coming from. As for the other crop, the talk of "quadrant intersect","dead centre", and "below mid-point", sound like one who follows the rules, what you get there is a form image. Some of the best images do not follow the rules, but break them, (that is not to say that this is one of them, far, far from that) to me is sets a mood. It reminds me of a painting my grandmother had,that I now own, that was painted on glass very dark and moody with mother of pearl to give it a sense of a source of light.

[Polar01]

Frank: that is one of the things that drew me to do this image, no lights on in the city, here is the catch, it is only 5:30 pm not dark enought for any lights to be seen. We are in the same time zone, it was not dark enought until at least 8:15 pm as sunset was not until 8:08 that night, and only got some colour from the city just before the ferry came to pick us up as the last ferry leaves at 9:30 we did not want to wait another hour as we had been there from 5:15 pm. Thinking later today I should have called it "Blackout".

Cheers:

Allam

[PBelarge]

Allan
I am assuming you were trying for a wide angle, almost panorama in the overall image.
I like what you have done to darken the image, there are times that Mother Nature will herself do the same without the city lights being on.
I have read and been told that items in the image that do not help should not be there. Hence I would crop a little of the buildings from the right side of the image and the first tree on the left side of the image. To help keep the "panorama" feel, I would also crop a little from the water at the bottom. I think the sky is awesome and so is the little bit of sun.
I also would not mind seeing a copy in b&w.
Nice work!