Photoclubalpha

Inspired by Hawk. This is from the back yard of Russian Hill Estate Winery in Sonoma County California. The weather was 70F (18C), clear skies and a gentle breeze. I did realize during preview that the table top in the lower right corner might be distracting....Anyway, all comments are welcome. Minolta 28-105 at f9, 1/160s, iso 200.

With best regards,
Sury

For me. I'd crop top and bottom - get rid of the table and reduce the sky a bit.

Dusty

Dusty,
Thank you for the feed back. I did not think of the Sky part. Good point.

Sury

100% agree with Dusty.

Thirded. Cut out the week parts and you've got a picture that would do well in a more cinematic format.

I had to think a while about your photo, I do like the scene (even if it's a little hazy, but you can't control that), that rusty coloured hill is great and the buildings also...the thing I don't care for much (besides the table), is the stakes and wire sticking up into the bottom of the scene, sort of Stalag13 ish, I'd like to see a version without those, but leave the sky alone...if possible.
Greg

Greg,
Stelag13ish? Hmmm. I felt they were distracting but did not realize evoked such a strong emotion. Unfortunately, I cannot redo the shot (it was taken on a visit) and had I zoomed in a bit closer, I would have lost the scope of the scape. I will play with crop (need to remove the table anyway) and see how it improves. Thank you for sharing your perspective. Much appreciated. As for sky, it was a flat one, where as the day before was fantastic with puffs of clouds all around.

With best regards,
Sury

What I tried was, scrolling the image down in the browser until the bottom of it disappeared by varying amounts (you might have to do fine adjustments by grabbing the scroll bar itself, as I had to). When the table is gone, I thougt the scene was much improved, so I fiddled with the stakes a bit. The main problem was, in getting rid of those altogether one had to sacrifice the nice orange patch at the bottom left, and most of the row of green trees running along the bottom as well. In the end as a compromise I decided that if the large ones nearest the table were gone that was probably good enough...
Greg

ps. Strong emotions ha ha, only if you liked Hogan's heroes, that's where I got the name from.

Greg,
I have a cropped version without the table but did not post it yet but it did indeed improve the image.
I love Hogan's Heroes and not to mention Stalag17, one of my all time favorite movies.

With best regards,
Sury