Critique me?

http://backup.cambridgeincolour.com/...ty-d4lmxek.jpg

Olympus E-520
1/15
f/8
ISO 100

minus crummy tiffen filter.

Greetings Blake,

The outlines of the benches make some interesting diagonals, but the one on the left leads my eye straight to that building in the left upper corner. Unless that building is important, I would try a crop just to the right of it. You might also be able to bring soome interesting detail out in that herring-bone pattern in front of the foreground bench with your favorite burn technique. Nice image

Cherrs,

Kevin

I would also say crop out the building in the upper left. The shot is a touch dark for me but that's just my opinion. The composition is good and it seams pretty sharp too. I would just lighten it a touch. With it being this dark the frames of the bench blend in and loose definition. A touch of fill light and maybe unsharpen mask to highlight the edges.

While it is a rather sombre photo at the moment, with a lot of deep shadows, there is a risk that brightening the overall scene could result in over exposure of the highlights particularly the sky and on top of the horizontal bench slats.

However, I think that with care some additional brightness could be applied to the midtones and part of the highlights without causing a problem. But I think you still need some blacks to be rather dark so as to present an expanded contrast range.

Perhaps my screen is off (I don't own a calibrator), but when I see it full size, the frame only loses it's definition at one point in the curve.

Hi Blake,
I rather like the sombre tone, I would like to see the building cloned rather than cropped, to keep the space between the seat and the edge of the frame.
However I do find my eye wanders around as there isn't a focal point, perhaps need a person or a bird (crow) on the front seat.
Thanks for sharing

A little distortion control after the crop and clone on the left side of the frame.

http://backup.cambridgeincolour.com/...df47e0e1_z.jpg

Actually, I want the building in there. You can see that building from just about anywhere in central Abbotsford, and from almost any point in Mill Lake Park. The focus really is supposed to be on the benches, but that building adds a sense of recognition when you live around here.

Great work Chris!
I see Blake's point but Still feel that the image looks better as a whole with the building cloned out. The focus is the benches and with the building there it just drew my
Eye away from the bench almost immediately.

You can have the building, but unless you've left significant head room, you have to sacrifice top space in order to get the distortion of the building under control.

http://backup.cambridgeincolour.com/...e91fdb4b_o.jpg

I'll look into reprocessing it then, probably sometime today