A Visit to the Gardens

[dje]

I had occasion last week to spend an hour or so in the Roma St gardens in the city whilst waiting for my wife. Here are a few shots that I took and I would welcome any comments, in particular on composition. The last shot was just a bit of fun. It is a feature representing a corner of an old house and at the time of day I was there (8AM), the "interior" was very dark and the view through the window quite bright. It was begging "HDR me". So I did with 3 exposures, 0EV, +2EV and -2EV, blended in CS6.

Dave

[John 2]

Nice series Dave. Like the comp of no.1 in particular.

[Digital]

Dave, I like these photographs very much.



Bruce

[Shadowman]

Very nice.

[Bobobird]

Nice shots. I like #4.

[kdoc856]

Love #5! Is the contrast of old/new, and muted/vibrant colours between the outside and inside intentional? If so, brilliant. If not, I wonder whether some desaturation outside and softening/blurring of the modern building might be a thought?

[DanK]

I like 4 best, then 3. 4 is both interesting and unusual. It would be even better if you could make the building in the window less distinct, since it distracts--the subject is the room, not the building. Maybe create a mask and apply blur only to the view through the windows?

I think the building is a bigger problem in the first one. It draws the eye, when presumably you wanted attention on the sculpture and flowers. DOF is very large at that wide an angle, particularly with a crop sensor. Nonetheless, in a situation like that, you might get better results by shooting with a wider aperture and focusing very close. The exif shows 17mm and f/11. Assuming the sculpture is about 15m away and you focused on it, your DOF was from 1.2 m to infinity. If you had opened to f/4 or so and focused very close, you could have blurred the building a little. Given the shot as is, you could simply crop most of it out, and then maybe do some postprocessing to obscure what is left of it.

[FootLoose]

I like the 5th one, Dave, and agree with what has been said. I would have been happy with a shot taken from the rhs, looking across the table to towards the wall with the photos on it.

[DanK]

Oops. I meant 5 and then 4. The room is my favorite.

[dje]

Thanks everybody for your comments and suggestions. I have removed the building from #1 and blurred the building in the window of #5. Definitely worth doing I think.

Dave

[DanK]

much better, I think.

[kdoc856]

Agree, well done

[mknittle]

All good ,but 5 is my favorite. good work!

[chauncey]

You make me green with envy with those great shots...I'm looking at snow in my yard.

[merlin1027]

Great photos. I really like #4 and #5

[dje]

Thanks for the further comments folks, much appreciated.

You make me green with envy with those great shots...I'm looking at snow in my yard.

Yes wm but that's something I never get to see !

Dave