Hello Bill,

I think this is a very nice and interesting image. My wife is fascinated with old graves, so wo see a lot of these. So let me add just another opinion to your post.

I think the composition is just fine. The added space around the headstones gives the image a sense of place. It's an old abandoned grave site in the woods. For me, to much cropping starts to lose that perspective.

I think as others did, this image needs more contrast, but not everywhere. As I view this image, the highlights in the background leaves and branches compete for attention with the headstone. So, I would reduce the overall exposure and contrast in all but the center of the image. This brings the viewers eyes immediately to the headstone.

Once I get the eyes to the headstone, the viewer (i.e. me) wants to see the details and writing in the headstone. Who are we viewing, when did they live and anything more about their life. So I would increase the contrast on the front headstone the improve the readability of the engravings. This adds eye candy for the viewer, i.e. the reward for exploring the image. Added contrast also add more texture in the headstone giving it that old age look. I would darken the second headstone in the background between the exposure level of the subject and the background. Let it begin to fade into the background.

I would also reduce the exposure in the foreground to further help frame your key elements.

This is just my view, YMMV. I like the framing of the subject and the selective increase in contrast brings out some of the interesting textures and adds a little more 'punch' to the image.

Mike

Engaging photo. I like some of the suggestions above and would like to comment on the composition. I find my eye moving from the the bottom left to the upper right sections where it loses focus due to the shallow DOF and leads me to an uninteresting area beyond the gravestone.

What about cropping on the right to almost the edge of the far stone and tightening the top and bottom crop slightly? I played with it a bit and was not happy to lose the "L" shape of the tree limb but also found that the depth was preserved and it seemed to tell somewhat of a different story - maybe more personal.

My comments are not meant to be critical. I am relatively new at this and am trying to learn about composition.

The feedback in Critique Forum on processing seemed to mostly agree that you needed more contrast, or an increase in midtones. On my monitor, Dave's is too dark and your re-work is closer to what would be personal preference for me.

Comparing your rework to the first you posted in this thread, I actually like some of the original better. One area would be the horizontal log, and another is the background. This is an image that could handle a lot of delicate and selective edits to emphasize very specific areas. Those decisions would be based on what you want people to notice first and what you want unobtrusive.

I read GeorgeK's comments about your composition with interest. I can see what he means about the line of the log, though a close crop IMO would remove too much of the "setting." Do you have other viewpoints? Is this a place you could revisit easily? There is much potential here I think!