In a followup comment, Don Neff pointed out that the strip at the bottom of the photo could use some detail added back in as well.
Here’s take 3:
I darkened the sky just a skotch more – this version seems nicely in balance to me – although my good friend and pro photography Chris Gulker votes with Ansel Adams for the first version (with the almost black sky)! Seems like dark skies are an “acquired taste”!
5 replies on “Take 3: The Barn at Pierce Point Ranch”
This is my favorite version. I tend to disagree with Chris as I don’t think Adams skies were that dark in a daytime scene. My understanding is he used red filters to make the sky darker than the land…not normally occurring in nature except at night.
Now you’ve got it! I was going to say that #2 was too bottom heavy. The eye was actually drawn to the dark solid foreground. Very good now.
Take 3 is definitely the winner…..looks like a real photo instead of feeling stylized. Evokes a different feel than the color version–stark, dramatic.
There is some weird banding of the sky’s color on the right side. Sort of looks like clouds, but the original does not have clouds.
Chris H., thanks for the comment! It is very interesting to me how black and white evokes so much more than color. It’s particularly dramatic in this example, I think.
I do see the banding – probably a result of my multiple tweaks to the image. If I was going to print the image, I’d definitely soften up/further blue that sky. I do like the light in the corner – but not the banding.
That’s a lovely balance, Scott.. But I’m still a fan of the “red filter” sky in #1. That sky forces the viewer to completely reconsider what they’re looking at and highlights the multiplier repeating geometries yo’uve captured in the face of the barn.Similar to how the black rectangle of sky in the classic Moonrise forces the eye to the cruciform compositions in that photo’s foreground. Let’s discuss tonite or tomorrow….