Nice little grab shot.
Im with the "don't do a thing crowd"
Resist the temptation to start shaving this thing. You're in a city in a storm and everything in that image speaks to it. The trees on the right being slightly distorted add a sort of panicky element to the storm scene reinforced by the swinging traffic light. Cars that seem to be stuck, couple of people for scale and mood, the nice spotlight over the back of the church...even the way the tip of the steeple is cut off...it brings the eye into the scene.
As Ken said...it's not about the church itself.
Photoshop's presence in the world is both a blessing and a curse. You have to know when to just say no, when to hang up the clone stamp. Damn!! Already to many dolled up images in the world. Let's try to chalk one up for spontaneous action here, the imperfect hand of man and the charm and expression that comes from it is being slicked up at a great rate by the softwares of the world...I'm guilty of it and always trying like hell to find the line that says...this is done.
If the image this thread was born on were my work, the only thing i would be intent on would be delivering a solid black and white print.
This guy's thread has been sidetracked with some semantiquated, sophomoric argument. Sorry, but I have to speak on that...rant is more like it.
Please, Shaukeng, don't fall into the trap of a "meaningbound" name. As you called it, "the name trick". Your image speaks for itself. Yes, you won't be there, standing next to your image explaining it's meaning to everyone who stumbles over for a squint. Thank god, you've got better things to do, right? If they don't get it then let 'em stumble over to the next picture on the wall and see if that will get their jollies all turbulated. Like, a photo of a rock in a stream with some blurred water rushing by it and a perfectly placed tree branch taking up the right side with all the moss photoshopped off of the rock. Oh Yeah...beams of light..beams of light. Then, they can go home saying.."how'd they get that water to look like that, honey?" Or, what was that picture called???..was it..."H2O's Revenge?"
You caint touch all of the people all of the time. There are way to many images floating around with pretentious names that are designed to hold a hand or hoist a pretty picture into meaning something way to deep. When I see that sort of stuff I usually want to either puke or throw up.
As for the critique semantics and rules discussions being tossed around here...so the guy wanted to hear some opinions...and, he disagrees with some of them and explains why. IMO, what he feels about things is backed up in the image. I believe he's correct and commend him for saying so. It's not the artist's role to be quiet during a crit, it's the artists role to say what he meant and to honor each opion with a yay or a nay or a that could be and "I'll think about that".....This happens in crits all the time. I don't think I've ever participated in a crit where it didn't happen...and if it didn't happen it was usually a pretty boring evening.
You have to be very careful when you start to listen to what the viewers of your images have to say...especially when they are photgraphers (painters, sculptures) themselves. If you start listening to your audience's criticisms, responses, feelings and opinions on this or that and everything..you run the risk of compromising your vision, that is, if you feel that you have a vision...having those little voices in your head saying...move to the right...look up higher...get rid of that tree, make the verticals vertical, lose the people, give it a name so they'll know what you are trying to SAY, like..."Heavy Metal Hymn", get rid of everything and have some BEAMS OF LIGHT!!!
(If you have a point and shoot in your hand then the tool will lead you to a process...if you have a view camera out in the snow storm then by all means, make the verticals vertical. Photoshop does a half assed job at turning a point and shoot image into a view camera image with extreme movements. You introduce lots of interpolation and you have to start correcting for the stuff that gets squashed while you get those verts verting. It can get to be a mess if you have lots to do)
The good things, the compliments, the oohs and the ahhs can disrupt a body's artistic flow...those things can corrupt. It's very easy to start listening to those nice words and trying to repeat the moves you made that got you to those sweet little moments, easy to lose your edge in these showers and it cuts both ways...
Please, no offense to anyone here...I might be a couple of notches higher on my horse than I expected.