Angla Windmills

[Manfred M]

The largest concentration of windmills on the island of Saaremaa, Estonia are found at Angla. There are five restored windmills here, although at one point in the early 1900s, there were 11 at this site.

This shot shows three of the windmills; the one in the foreground is a "Dutch style" windmill (only the rich could afford to build this larger design) and the rest are the more traditional trestle design that is found elsewhere on Saaremaa.

[Donald]

Gorgeous sky. Did you have GNDs on your lens?

[Manfred M]

Gorgeous sky. Did you have GNDs on your lens?

No filters in this shot. I had planned to bring my GNDs, but I was right on the weight limit for my luggage, so they stayed at home. The clouds were nicely textured and I brought them out a bit more in PP.

[dem]

Nice colour and detail in the wood against the clouds.

I think a simpler composition with a tighter crop would enhance that. Might look even more dramatic in B&W.

[Manfred M]

Thanks Dem. I took some shots like that one, so have no need to crop. I just like the additional colours that the red roof and green complement each other nicely and the massive amounts of texture that the sky adds to the image. Your crop works very well, but it removes the landscape, which I also want to show in the image.

I agree that this would have worked in B&W as architecture, especially older buildings, does work well in that genre. I did a lot of B&W photography in the past, but don't do it as often now, as I find working in colour is far more challenging. The other reason is that a colour sRGB image can contain up to 16.8 individual colours; while with a B&W jpeg, I have thrown almost all of that data away and am limiting myself to just 256 tones from pure black to pure white with 254 shades of gray in the middle.

[NorthernFocus]

The crop and the B/W were improvements IMO. The crop really takes advantage of the three mills relative positions in the frame. Nicely done both Manfred and Dem for the suggestion.

[FootLoose]

I find the cropped version is a much stronger composition, too. I wonder if you had taken a few steps to the left you could have separated the lower vane of the middle windmill from the background a bit more?

[IzzieK]

I like the edit of Dem but I sort of prefer the original one better with a little bit of the environment.

[Shadowman]

Nicely composed.