Dunstanburgh

[KMRennie]

Trying to see in monochrome again after a lot of colour work. This is a honey pot photographic location in England's NE Coast. Unfortunately shot on a rising tide so I was perched on the large round slippery boulders splashing all the neighbouring boulders with handfuls of water, I must have looked strange.
I am readily seduced by contrast. Have I gone too far with the contrast? I also notice in the thumbnail that it looks like a halo around the castle, is it just me?
Ken

[pcgpcg]

My only critique is that the rocks in the foreground are either too close or not quite close enough. I would either leave them out, or get them a bit closer to show more detail. They are close enough now to initially attract interest, but not close enough to provide enough interesting detail once my brain has decided to go there. As a result they become somewhat of a disappointing distraction. That sounds overly harsh, which is not my intent as I like the photo. It's just that the foreground rocks are in a "middle" zone that doesn't work for me.

If you did bring the foreground rocks closer, I would lower the contrast on their detail and that would play well with the high contrast of the distant rocks and castle. I might open up the shadows and very slightly brighten the hillside beneath the castle just a bit, to lower the contrast there, but I'd leave the distant rocks as they are. I like the contrast.

I see the halo effect around the castle hill in the thumbnail, but when viewed full res I do not find it distracting.

Very nice!

[Jeremy Roussak]

I think it's a good shot. I might try to open up the shadows, particularly on the hill, a little bit, but generally I'm a fan of high-contrast monochromes.

I don't agree that the foreground rocks aren't big or close enough, but that might merely be a personal preference. I've grown to dislike photographs whose foreground is dominated by an enormous boulder: I find it merely distracting.

Jeremy

[stamper]

As it is the processing is fine imo and all of the elements come together except fpr what appears to be figures on the horizon. I would have cloned them out because I find them a little distracting. It would make the outline of the castle - which is small - appear larger?

[KMRennie]

Some more work on the image including lifting the shadows on the cliff under the castle. To see what it looks like I have increased the size of the castle and removed the very large parts of the ruined castles but I think I prefer the smaller castle with all of its "bits". I would have crouched lower and fitted a 20mm lens to make the foreground rocks larger but my footing was precarious and I had already dropped a lens cap and lens hood and dreaded the thought of dropping the 24-70.
All comments welcome.

Ken

[seamus finn]

I still think they're very good.

[Jeremy Roussak]

Some more work on the image including lifting the shadows on the cliff under the castle. To see what it looks like I have increased the size of the castle and removed the very large parts of the ruined castles but I think I prefer the smaller castle with all of its "bits". I would have crouched lower and fitted a 20mm lens to make the foreground rocks larger but my footing was precarious and I had already dropped a lens cap and lens hood and dreaded the thought of dropping the 24-70.
All comments welcome.

The first is definitely an improvement: you've increased the definition of the clouds towards the right, which I think is also good.

I don't think removing the "bits" is useful or necessary.

Jeremy

[BobDavid]

I think a square crop works better. The rocks in the foreground are too dominant.