An evening at the chateau ...

[bambleweeney]

The chateau in question is the Chateau de Roquefixade an old Cathar castle (as opposed to a new Cathar castle I guess). A long hard (for me) climb up to catch the evening and try some night shots followed by a descent on a slippery path in the dark where much bad language was employed to assist.

[Kodiak]

The chateau in question is the Chateau de Roquefixade

I dig spooky things and your #1 is a master piece of the genre!

[Shadowman]

Very nice, all three.

[bnnrcn]

Great shots

[Kaye Leggett]

Beautiful colours - well worth the swearing !!

[DanK]

Very nicely composed shots, but to be honest, the colors in the first and perhaps the second look a bit oversaturated to me.It also looks like you have some dust spots--check the middle of the blue sky of the second one. It should be easy to clone them out, given the even background around them.

[bambleweeney]

Very nicely composed shots, but to be honest, the colors in the first and perhaps the second look a bit oversaturated to me.It also looks like you have some dust spots--check the middle of the blue sky of the second one. It should be easy to clone them out, given the even background around them.

Thanks folks. Re over saturation - I'm kind of on the fence on this one. The first two shots were reworked and yep, the saturation was increased. Now I'm torn - depending on my mood or the time of day I look at these depends whether I prefer the saturated or the more natural version. Right now it's the saturated versions (an hour ago I was thinking I'd way overcooked it). The dust spots - yes dammit. The other images I cloned them out - this one I forgot for some reason and I only spotted them after I'd uploaded.

[rpcrowe]

I especially enjoy image #1. By the way, the history of the Cathars is really interesting and shows that persecution in the name of religion is certainly not new; nor is it restricted to the ISIS movement!

[Donald]

... followed by a descent on a slippery path in the dark where much bad language was employed to assist.

But very well worth the effort.

[DanK]

if you allow edits, I will post a suggestion for a crop

[KimC]

Love the first one. All were well worth the slippery path back down :-)

[chauncey]

The envy in me causes me to ask...did you use any light painting techniques to assist with the
initial shooting. I'm really liking the final output...the CG look to them.

[Stagecoach]

The compositions of 1 & 2 are great and the treatment appeals to me. As for the saturation, well at least you have images that can be varied easily to suit different tastes and that's a big bonus.

[bambleweeney]

Richard :- religious persecution is certainly not new and the history of the Cathars is both shocking and violent
Dan :- I rarely crop my images. I figure I should have got it right first time round but let's see what you've got in the way of a crop. Knock yourself out as they say.
Chauncey :- the third image is light painted with my trusty torch (flashllight). I used fill in flash on the first two and fortunately had a long enough shutter speed to manually fire the flash (the battery in my wireless remote had died on me). The problems of focusing and framing in pitch black with just a torch can only be imagined !!!
Grahame :- it's simply a matter of switching on/off a layer in Photoshop and the saturation is here/gone.

[marlunn]

I like them and the subject, I do like the treatment of them as Kodiak says 'spooky', given their history if there are ghosts - there will be ones there - the things we do for our 'art'

if you want a real challenging Cathar castle try this one- but not at night - its way too dangerous to navigate with your flashlight
http://www.chateau-peyrepertuse.com/

[DanK]

Paul,

There's nothing magical about the aspect ratio of the sensor. My feeling is that if that aspect ratio includes a less than optimal mix of stuff, I'd rather change it.

Here's my logic, for what it is worth. What's most interesting in the first one is the castle, the tree, and the beautiful contrast between the orange and blue parts of the sky, which are even more interesting because the orange continues the line formed by the castle and true. The illuminated foreground provides some foreground detail, but it is so big and bright that I found that it pulled my eye away from the more interesting stuff. There isn't much of interest in the far left, and the blue sky at the top has relatively little in it and extends so far from the castle that it too drew my eye away. Of these things, I found the large bright area in the bottom right to the most distracting. So, I figured: remove what's distracting, and emphasize the most interesting stuff. That led me to something like this:



Just my taste, of course.

Dan

[John 2]

Paul, three very nice images and very well worth the effort. I prefer your own crop of the first (sorry Dan ) because of the lead in that the lit area provides but I do find that section a bit bright. It might also be worth eliminating the cyan from the castle stonework. Demonstrate what I have in mind if you want.

[dje]

That first one really blows me away Paul. Great shot.

Dave

[bambleweeney]

Mark :- Peyrepertuse I know and it's not too far from here (on the grand scale of things) and on my list to re-shoot. I seem to remember that a night visit with a flashlight could be ... dodgy :-) An early morning (unlikely) or evening shoot probably.
Dan :- interesting idea but I prefer the lead in on mine. It's a case of my memory of being there perhaps with the yawning drop on my right which I was advised not to fall down (good advice and I didn't)
John :- you're right about the cyan and it's really bothering my now. Not quite sure how that crept it but it needs correcting/warming up. I don't mind the brightness of the foreground too much, it certainly doesn't bear much relation to 'reality' but for me it kind of works as a counterpoint to the rest of the image which is quite dark.

The chateau is a really calm peaceful place with great views and a wonderful place to chill on a summer evening, very few visitors (???) and nothing spooky here at all, just the company of a few wandering cows with clanging bells (who steadfastly refused to wander into the light and give me a shot I wanted). If only I was fit enough to lug a cold beer or two to the summit along with my camera stuff ...

Thanks loads for comments and suggestions.