Re-working of a countryside shot

[StuartR]

Being semi-incapacitated at the moment I've been browsing through some of my old stuff to see if there's any that I can improve from when they were originally processed.

This one I quite liked although, if I can get in first with my own critique, I wish I'd angled the camera a little higher as the sky above was really black with storm clouds. Still, I thought it was a reasonably pleasant country scene? Should I crop a bit off the bottom perhaps? (For those fellow users viewing this in Google's Chrome browser, it looks a bit darker than it does in IE).

[Stephen]

Re: Re-working of a countryside shot

Stuart, I think this is a fine picture. Great sky and evening light. Its also a pretty stereotypical English scene, which I always find pleasing. There are two things that niggle with me however. Firstly the out of focus shrub in the bottom right which I find distracting, and secondly I feel that ideally the Church would be better on a vertical third line

[peter]

Re: Re-working of a countryside shot

I pretty much agree with with Stephen. I know what he is saying about the church but I do not always think of these things myself when taking photos. Ok Ok I know it shows sometimes as well. I really do like this photo and would have been well happy if I had taken it.

[yoshi]

Re: Re-working of a countryside shot

a beautiful and picturesque landscape! This is my first impression.
It somehow reminds me of a medieval religious oily painting in the West. If I could see some cupid/angels in the sky, it would have been perfect ... but of course I admit I do not know much about them.
'Quietness' looks like the word appropriate for the picture. So imho the darker clouds is better to be cropped out in this context.

As you said, if you had framed a bit higher to include more of those dark clunds, the picture would give me much different impression. However, judging from the fact that the other parts of the sky is full of brighter clouds, I think, it is better to "choose" the word 'quietness' as the keyword of this picture than 'stormy' feeling. Again, however, i do not know whether there was too much noisy traffic along side the field....
yoshi