La Tour - C&C

AnCatDubh

Ok, I know it's been done to death but not previously by me so i'd hope to see what others think of my attempt.

My intention was to produce something along the lines of what you might see in the postcard stuff.

The day(time) I was shooting gave me the challenge of being very overcast so there isn't much colour to work with - hence the retreat to a b/w. The darn things is big - so i ended up shooting wide as i could go @ 18mm which i appreciate has skewed the perspective somewhat.

In particular i'd hope to see what peeps opinions are on; the b/w conversion, vignette, contrast (should i add more or take away), sharpening, brightness and generally do you like such a perspective.

Does the large negative space (top left towards middle) work ok given the subject matter?

Other comments - or + welcome.



Feel free to add your own attempts to illustrate points.

Thanks.

PaulieC

I'm surprised that this didn't even get one reply since you yourself are generally very good about giving C&C, so I guess I'll throw in my thrupence worth.

I like the angle. The Tour Eiffel has obviously been done to death and it's extremely hard to get any sort of original take on it. If you do an image search for the tour, you'll get mostly straight on shots from a distance, with this wide-type only showing up a few times. Also, unless you've seen thsi thing up close it's hard to appreciate the enormity of it, so you'd need a hella-wide angle to get much more of it.
I like the fact that you can see good detail up the 'leg' and also the fact that the top part is almost indistinguishable from the Blackpool tower

As for the PP, I don't think the vignette adds anything here except to distract. On the left side there looks to be a little detail in the clouds - have you tried to bring them out at all ?
Overall: thumbs up !

Dades

I like it a lot.

Was in Paris a couple of years ago and didn't get any interesting shots of the tower like this.

Nice PP'ing!

superflyninja

I think its a great angle and nicely processed.Id agree the the vignetting doesnt add a whole pile.

dakar

Just a couple of random thoughts, not necessarily suggestions, just things that occured to me when looking at it.

I love the way the mass and solidity of the tower is suggested by the bulk of the ironwork anchoring the image on the lower left hand side. Is it worth cropping the right hand side so that all of the base of the image is tower, or does the bit of free space give a sense of the air that the stucture is soaring into?

I like the vignette, ok, it's a bit of a cliche, but hey, it's a shot of the Eiffel tower, you're practically obliged to stray at least a bit into cliche!:)

It would be great if you could pull a bit more detail out of the clouds on the left. And at least the bit of detail that's there is better than a beautiful but boring clear azure sky would have given you (but would have been good in colour of course).

I think it works well overall, an original take on a subject that's, for want of a better word, overexposed:P

YogiBear

Really like it Ancatdubh.. I agree with Cambo about the vignetting. Maybe lighten instead of darken, it would bring out more of the detail & add more contrast..

e.g.:



erm.. obviously that could be improved.

kjt

I like the shot, it's a pity there weren't more clouds out but theirs not much you can do about that. Regarding Vignetting, I'm usually an all out or none type of guy. So I'd say either up it a good bit more or leave it out, I think a bit more could look good. I've given it a bash to show you, also I've lightened it a little with curves.




Also I think with some white vignetting it looks nice..



Kyle

Dragan

Yeah, I really like the shot.

As stated, it gives a great idea of the sheer size and mass of the subject! The vignetting doesn't really do it for me though.

4sb

I like the tonal treatment of the detailed ironwork - and it's a strong composition. It brings up the massive yet delicate beauty of the tower.

Agree with the other posters that the vignetting is superfluous - the graphic composition doesn't need help to draw you to it. I do like Yogibear's treatment of it, but if it were mine (I wish), I'd leave it as original.