Photoclubalpha

or a different crop

I wouldn't delete it, it looks quite nice to my eye. At the least it's a record of what the situation was on that day of the year in that particular scene so no I def wouldn't delete it just on those grounds.
Greg

Hi Vaughan - I prefer #2. Could perhaps lose a bit of sky? I like the curve around the field boundary to the tree. The yellow makes for an interesting contrast.

I like #2. The clouds are a bit bright (maybe just my monitor) but the overall coloring is great, I'd keep 'em !

Vaughan --- This image is very sharp with full depth of field. To my eye (and this is highly subjective), I would go with a crop somewhat intermediate between your two crops. I think this is a case where the "rule of thirds" happens to be good guidance as a starting point. (In case this is new to you, in the rule of thirds you divide your image space into a tic-tac-toe grid: 3 bands high and 3 bands wide, making 9 blocks total. Focal points (like your tree) are placed at the intersection points of the grid, and subject blocks [in this case, your yellow field, the umbel(yarrow?)/grass field, and the sky] are separated by the lines of the grid. In your first version, the tree is close to center of the image, and the division between the yellow field and the umbel/grasses is also about center. The second version is closer to a thirds composition and more pleasing to my eye. However, to my eye the composition would be more pleasing yet if the umbel/grasses occupied the whole width of the right third of the image and the sky was limited to whole third band at the top of the image. This would put the tree--the focal point--near the intersection of the top third boundary line and the right third boundary line, for a classic rule of thirds composition. You should adjust the strict thirds according to the visual weight of the fields in the image.

Personal editorializing: To make my own perspective clear, the "rule of thirds" is not a "law of thirds," and many great images violate the rule. You shouldn't let the rule cripple your imagination and creativity. Like the "golden rectangle," etc., the rule is merely an empirical observation that these proportionalities often produce pleasing visual compositions, but not all thirds compositions are pleasing.

--- John

I prefer the first but a bit of crop from the bottom wouldn't hurt. I agree with the rule of thirds but those are not only gridlines, even the Mercedes logo is within the "rule of thirds". In this particular case you did with the Mercedes sign.
Though very subjective, I really like the first one, you are clearly showing something here, but in the second, I do not see your motif... just a field of yellow flowers? I don't think that was your objective. I'm sure you too are prone to the first.

I think they all work a bit better with more dramatic cropping; from the bottom in the first picture, and from the top in the second.