... It seemed to me that the coloured, solid wall gave an anchor to the wispy, ethereal branches above...
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=175875\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Now we are talking! So, your intention was to contrast the solid wall and ethereal branches. Here is my (humble) opinion why it is not working for me the way you expected:
- in the elongated ratio (1.6 to 1), the wall is occupying much less space than the branches
- in general, objects placed in the lower part of an image have less compositional weight than those in the upper part
- darker objects also have less weight (i;e., eyes are drawn to lighter objects first)
- the leading lines in this picture are the black, diagonal branches in the middle, but where do they lead?... right out of the picture!
So, the end result is that eyes are too quickly drawn to the upper, lighter part of the picture and then even quicker led out of the picture, barely leaving enough time to notice the wall or the contrasting patterns of stones vs. wispy branches.
Now, there is only so much that post-processing may achieve... often the best solution is compositional bracketing, i.e., taking multiple shots of the same scene, varying viewing angle and relationship between picture elements.
Speaking about post-processing, here is what I would do:
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