It's an interesting question...
I'm sure we've all been there, with the light (and cloud) changing as we ponder.
To me the key difficulty is the incursion of bright light from the right corner.
i1, the square, is lovely, but if only the cloud top right wasn't so square, and if only
the lines in the sky weren't so horizontal... if the light seemed to be streaming INTO
the picture more transcendence might surely have occurred!
How do you feel about cloning things out of their miserable existence? For me, that
brightly lit head far right (still i1) just has to go - I can't look at it. Sometimes these
things have to be done, one way or another.
I'm not sure I prefer it (i2) overall, but it's interesting to observe how the diagonals coming
in from top right work to mediate this problem (as I claim it to be) of the light from the
side.
Again, the light is streaming in from top right. Highlights in the bottom right corner only
serve to distract the eye. Get rid of them and the (unfortunately fading) highlight on the
edge of the snow main centre starts to shine a bit more. Generally there is a gentle
'criss-crossing' of diagonals in i2 that gives it an edge.
For reasons that come out of the stuff I say above, personally I think i3 would have been
the clear winner - but it would have needed more sky above (without sacrificing the lower
edge!) to round out the image and finish off some of the suggested rhythms.
Oh! getting all the necessary elements into one image!
As I say, I think it's an interesting scenario - I find the 'negotiation' of compositional elements
in this kind of situation fascinating. I hope I havn't offended your lovely image.
TH
