Whip my architectural a$$

[Izpipo]

This is a pic I took a few years back in Cuba, always loved it, but was wondering how I could have made it better... Go on Dgrinnners, whip!

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/9943/cubawowqf2.jpg

[Dizzydee]

Hi,
I'm fairly new to photography but, I have been studying. It looks like you were trying to framing in your photo. If that is the case, it didn't work for me. The framing seems to be taking away from the photo. I can't seem to find the focus of the photo. :dunno That being said, I think you have great exposure, you just need to work on composition a little more. Just my two cents worth...

[PhilCollum]

:agree

I'm still learning myself, so please take my comments with a grain of salt (if not the whole shaker bottle!)

I think this image and the framing has some very interesting potential, with a variety of interesting colors and textures. I think you had a great "eye" to see this shot when you took it. But there's also several things that, to me, take away from what appears to be your primary subject (the building with the scaffolding). My eye is drawn either to the right (into the heavy stucco wall), or to the upper left (into the sky), and not into the building.

But first, a warning: I normally try to be gentle and cautious in critiquing other people's photos. But it's 7:20 AM and I'm just finishing up a graveyard shift at work, so I'm not sure all my synapsus are firing at full strength!! I want to be specific enough to give some useful feedback, but I sincerely hope none of this sounds too harsh!! :dunno

Okay, here is it:

- You've centered the building, where it would probably be better served in one of the thirds.
- The horizon is almost exactly at centerline in the frame, and splits the image in half. Again, thirds would have probably been more interesting to me.
- The choice of a square crop only enhances these issues
- The large, bright pink wall on the right is way too heavy for the rest of the photo, and a majority of it could be cropped away.
- All that weight on the right side of the image leaves the other side feeling unbalanced.
- There's also too much sky for my tastes, and the sky isn't that interesting. A lot of it could be cropped away. Of course, cropping it will mean loosing the interesting shape of the stucco structure. If you're able to reshoot, you might try adjusting your position.
- You took this image at a series of right angles - the wall is at a right angle to the railing. The railing is at a right angle to the building. The building is at a right angle to the horizon. And the camera's position is at a flat, right angle to the entire image. Again, I think adjusting your position when you took the photo would help produce some more interesting lines, and draw the viewer's eye where you want it to go.
- A polarizing filter would have helped the sky tremendously, along with the other colors and textures in the photo
- The position of the sun at the time you took this photo left the bottom half of the railing underexposed and you've lost a lot of shadow detail. Too bad, since I bet there was some more great texture in there! The sun's position also washed out a lot of the texture in the stucco wall, and created a shadow line on the tile wall. Waiting for a different time of day might have helped out.

Lastly, the choice of subject doesn't really do much for me. The building with the scaffolding is the least interesting structure in this photo. It's a new building with a plain white wall and some scaffolding around it... not very interesting. Personally, I'm much more interested in the great textures on the tile wall, the neat tile rooftop just beyond the tile wall (beneath the railing), and the cool beat-up building in the lower left corner. To me there's a lot of potentially interesting and unique photos in this image that might have been captured. But that's just my opinion.

My 2 cents!