Philly Landscapes c&c as brutal as it is sometimes is always welcome

[MatthewWilliams]

From The city of brotherly love ... from the summer of '14 .. Being in the middle of no where WY Urban landscapes are not a subject that is easily accessible, however, I went back east this summer and had the opportunity to wonder around Philadelphia. With these i was mostly trying some PP enhancements -these are the results.



1


2


3



When I have a chance in the next few days i will add the originals to compare (I don't have access to them at this moment) Please be gentle - but I can handle Brutal - C&C

[pnodrog]

Take deep breath and sit down..... I see nothing that deserves being brutal about. So I will try and be as gentle possible.

The lighting in the first photo is very pleasant and looks like late afternoon. The exposure, colour temperature and perspective adjustment are very good. The crop on the buildings is very tight and you lost the top of the buildings. I find if I take a photo that I know I will be doing perspective corrections in PP I use a very lose crop when taking it to allow for the area lost when trimming up the photo. This may not be what happened but it is worth keeping in mind but you probably already know that.. As it is already tight on the sides I would suggest going for a much tighter crop starting almost at the base of the red building vertically hugging or close to it's sides with the top cropped down to the ball on the spire. Actually there are several interesting crops available, you as the photographer just have to decide on one.

The second photograph is simple and bold. Not much I can suggest other than it would work well if not even better as a rather contrasty B&W.

The third shot is well composed with some additional interesting elements and shapes provided by the fencing. If you can, go back and take it with a more dramatic sky.

That was the brutal truth but remember it is only as I see it....

[MatthewWilliams]

well thank you and yes i was sitting -- unfortunately on the first one there was no more on the top- I had another photo with more but there was too much camera shake I was standing 100 or so meters away .. I will try A B&W on the 2ndd .. as for the sky the East coast rarely has anything but crappy skies.. ps. the first is Independence Hall -- the birthplace of the US

[FootLoose]

I like the first shot for the different tones in the three buildings, Mat. I don't know what conventional composition guidelines might suggest, but I like the way you framed the clock tower with a darker and lighter building either side.

And the 2nd: I like this kind of geometric study. I would convert it to b&w and work on the different tones, too.

[IzzieK]

What can I say? Paul has said it all. Although --- I like #1 really for the overall view. The golden light hitting the spire on that side is quite pretty. My fav is #2. I have seen that kind of shot before but here the clouds made it really nice. In #3 -- I can never really understand this kind of artwork. We have something similar down the valley strip mall (THF) where the back of the mall have this sort of metal horses, cost a few hundred thousand bucks to the city and it looks really ugly. Your shot is good but the art work is sort of disgusting to me.

[Shadowman]

Nice set.

[mknittle]

#1 looks really good to me #2 Is nice too but I wonder if it would look better in black and white.

[MatthewWilliams]

so heres the 2nd in b&w



and the original



and the original #3



original #1 and alternate



and

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Matthew,

Please take this post as an exercise in image analysis rather than as critique on your shot ...

I'm going to suggest that #1, the Independence Hall, is not in ideal light for the structure - I suspect this is due to the time of year shot and time of day it was shot, plus shadows cast on it by buildings out of view to camera right

In other words, there really wasn't anything you could do about that in a fleeting visit.

I say this because the Hall's tower appears to be in shadow, the front is, in parts, nicely lit to reveal texture in the masonry. The problem is the huge monoliths behind are sunlit and hence grab the viewer's attention.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's much scope to get better light at the same or later time of day, due to it being shot in July and the orientation of the building with respect to the compass is not conducive. However, assuming this was shot late afternoon/evening (the sun looks low), I wonder if sun light (from camera left) might reach this face of the building, early-ish in the morning.

On this exposure, you could perhaps try some selective post processing to Local Contrast Enhance (LCE) just the Hall and exclude the buildings behind.

Certainly, if I were trying to use this shot to publicise the building (I know you're not), I might try this and even take liberties with reducing exposure and sharpness of the buildings behind.


My only visit to Philly was back in '77 on a very hot day, travelling through from DC to NYC, as I recall.

[AlwaysOnAuto]

I like No. 1 a lot.
I don't know if it's possible, but take the last picture you posted of shot No.1 and overlay just the image of Indy Hall from shot No.1 original on it so you get the tops of the buildings in the shot as suggested.
I don't have the fainest idea of how to do that but others may know how.

[Wavelength]

In the first set, the perspective of the second image is very nice and became even nicer in the B&W conversion...In the first image i would like to see a bit of sky above the building...

Regards

[MatthewWilliams]

I like No. 1 a lot.
I don't know if it's possible, but take the last picture you posted of shot No.1 and overlay just the image of Indy Hall from shot No.1 original on it so you get the tops of the buildings in the shot as suggested.
I don't have the fainest idea of how to do that but others may know how.

I thought of doing that -- i know i can do it in GIMP ( i know photoshop of lightroom would be easy but i'm cheap and prefer the open source stuff ) for the post i am exploring darktabe which i run on an older and slow laptop using linux(unbuntu to be precise) so i will try some of the suggestions and see what i can do

[MatthewWilliams]

In the first set, the perspective of the second image is very nice and became even nicer in the B&W conversion...In the first image i would like to see a bit of sky above the building...

Regards

thanks .. i agree i really liked how the b&w come out