[GetAnafterlife]

I really like this photo i would like your thoughts on it.
Unedited(apart form resize+text (obviously)), taken with a Fujifilm FinePix F700.

[fionaB]

i like the composition of ths shot, the framing using the trees and i dont mind the railway lines although some will say different...... there are some things i would remove. so hope u dont mind so i took the liberty of playing.......

[Rob Barron]

No question the wires were distracting for me, made it far too busy so Fi's pimp has helped a lot. Good work there Fi

The picture appears to be rather too heavily compressed as there is a significant level of jpeg artefacts and I note that the picture is only 118Kbs so you could have virtually halved the compression to keep a bit more sharpness and quality, assuming the original image was sharp.

Overall, I can see why you took it as the colours of the houses should be eye-catching but this has a slight imbalance in the tonal range. It has the full range from 0 to 255 but it needs the mid-grey point shifting to lift the mid-tones. You weren't helped by the fact it was a pretty grey day anyway so better lighting would have given you a p[icture with a bit more impact.

Cheers,
Rob

[skipper954]

Dissenting opinion here. I think that the overhead lines and tv antennae add to the gritty feeling of this image. Perhaps I would remove some, but not all of the clutter.

Agree with Rob on the tonal range.

skip

[nichpr]

Jamie, I start to see a story in my mind about 3 hard working cheerful families that take great pride in their homes. Homes that may not be located in the most ideal location and who just smile as their china rattles in the cupboard every time a train goes by.
With that, perhaps clean up some of the distracting bits and adjust the color but keep some of the wires and other evidence of the reality of their existence.
- Paul

[Rob Barron]

My Aunty who lived just outside Peterborough backed onto a railway line just like this and when we were young we loved going there. We'd play on the railway line as well but don't tell anyone at Health and Saftey, they'd have kittens these days! It was a long straight track at this point and you could hear a train coming for ages before you ever got to see it and when you saw it the train was still close on a mile away so there was absolutely no danger whatsoever.

Anyway, that aside, the point is it was up on a bank like we see here and the first day we were there we noticed the trains. By the next day we never used to notice them at all. They don't make as much noise as people think because there were very few buildings around for the noise to bounce off and cause echoes (that's what makes them sound so noisy in cities).

Although I have always seen in movies, Carry On films and so forth the family china shaking like crazy, we never saw that happen in reality. I remember Aunty Kathleen had a beautfiul Welsh dresser in the kitchen with the traditional plates stood up against the back but I can't ever remember them vibrating let alone falling down or anything.

And that was in the days when double glazing meant you had two coatings of varnish on your tiles!

I can see Skip's point about the gritty reality of the cables. I guess that is entirely valid if the picture is to show urban life, living be the tracks, etc. I was seeing it more as a picture of three colourful houses and not much else so then the wires being cloned out would help. Two different pictures, both equally valid

Cheers,
Rob

[GetAnafterlife]

Thanks for your comments, I have to say I was trying to get the three colourful houses. It was miserbly day aswell. I dont know what tonal range is could somsone explain?

[Angela]

I like Fi's edit but I have to say I do like the original as well. If the railway lines weren't there, I would agree that the power lines need to come out but the two together do work and add another dimension to the photograph.

[silver]

if you look at the version w/o the cables the shot seems a bit unbalanced, it's like all going on below with an emptyness about the top,,. adding a 'new sky' would detract from the colourful houses I think,.

quick hack



(ignore the dodgy attempts at softening the trees and stuff, I was trying to show an idea rather than a finished image)

for me it's abt the colours and the geometry of the image,. that said I might suggest shooting again with a more straight on position to the houses - which may not be possible looking at the undergrowth!

Sil