local contest.

[jconti3]

Our local climbing gym, rocktowngym.com, is having a photo contest. The winner of the contest recieves a free month pass($56). So, here are the rules:
One entry per person. All photos must incorporate some element of the gym within the photo. Contestant must own rights to photo and provide permission for its use to Rocktown. Deadline to submit is by Midnight on May 31st. Winner will be announced on June 1st 2011. Good luck.
I have a few ideas and wanted to share these as I go.I'm going to be changing location by about a 1/8 mile or so for the next shots. C&C please.

[jconti3]

[jeeperman]

Jhon, that is a nice shot. It is not what I imagined I was about to see while reading your post. I take it the building is the gym? I do wish there were a little more detail in the horse and wagons.

Well there ya go, I somehow did not have the second shot to view the first time around.

[jconti3]

Is this more in focus? Am I trying to hard to make this picture work?

[Dave Humphries]

Is this more in focus? Am I trying to hard to make this picture work?

Hi John,

Yes it is better sharpness-wise.

I do wonder if there's still too much in it though;

foreground grasses
buildings (modern?)
'statues' of wagon train
street lamps (and some flares)
night sky and stars (and sunset glow or light pollution)

I think you need to decide what it is a picture of - and that can be hard - if you knew before taking it, this would be a better image. e.g. perhaps by getting closer and shooting with a wider angle of view(?)

It may just be because I have been doing a first cull on hundreds of pictures I shot recently, but I am finding the same thing, I snapped (a lot), and somewhere in the images are some good photographs trying to get seen unfortunately, that now involves a far too dramatic crop to be feasible in many cases

Back to yours - the shooting of this was probably an almost magical event for you, I can sort of see how the elements would combine to produce that feeling for you, but it doesn't transfer to a casual observer (who wasn't there) well at all.

I think if mine I would;

remove the worst of the lens flares from the lamps
desaturate a little, perhaps selectively; e.g.

the foreground grasses look a bit too yellow
there's also a bright yellow patch of sky on tree line on RHS horizon
white balance better on buildings

But that still doesn't address the fundamental problem - what is the subject?

Hope that helps, but remember, it's just one view and there's no right or wrong to this,

[jconti3]

Aview from the west side. It's just not a very attractive subject so, I find myself just trying to incorporate it in to the frame.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi John,

Sorry, I hadn't re-read the initial post when writing my reply and so a lot of what I said maybe isn't that relevant.

Hmmmm, that's not gonna be easy is it?

OK, let's think; you want an image that's going to appeal to climbers (well, the organisers do, they obviously want to use it for publicity), so thinking like a climber, which I am not ...
get close and shoot upwards to emphasize the height?

btw, my son would love that place

[jconti3]

Everyone is going to be shooting the inside and the "vertical" type pics for this contest. I'm really trying to do something else. If all else fails, I shot a climbing comp here 3 weeks ago and can enter one those shots.