Confederate Memorial in BUTTS County, GA

[MikeFairbanks]

I need to spend more time learning how to process HDRs in tonemapping. I have a long way to go, and I'm still inconsistent on taking my photos at predetermine intervals of exposure.

Anyway, here's something I'm working on right now. It's interesting to note that here in the South, Confederate soldier statues have their backs to the North.

Enjoy.

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q295/thepirannah/ConfederateMemorial.jpg

[lunasicc]

needs more contrast imo,seet shot though

[KnightRanger]

The green shrubs and grass jump out at me first. I was wondering if the principal interest is the statue: Is there a way to tweak up the intensity of the statue? or if: the building is the main interest can I tweak up those beautiful red bricks? If I darken the sky does the building and the statue both jump out or "pop" taking the interest off of the shrubbery?

Sorry I have no technical knowledge at this time as to how to achieve such results, I do appreciate the factoid of the directional on the statues. I prefer to think of the statues as "Faceing South". Being a California Boy, I don't know if that qualifies me as an "Official Yankee" I do know that when I was in The South, well, those are some of my fondest memories.

Thank you for shareing this beautiful capture.

[KenVP]

That patch of dead shrub kills it imo, if that could be fixed it would be decent. but thats just me.

[KnightRanger]

That patch of dead shrub kills it imo, if that could be fixed it would be decent. but thats just me.

+1 I saw the Image Editing OK tag, and I saved your image to my disk. I used the straighten tool to make the base of the statue "level",, then I cropped out that hedge in front, I think You will like the change that simple modification makes. It's amazing what happens when you play with the edge of that front hedge row.
Unfortunatley I have not yet learned how to Resize for the Web, and I am unsuccessful with uploading the results at this time.

Thank you for helping me to learn how to do this part of the process, once I get some worthy pixels of my own captures to upload I'll be ready to share.

[kirkt]

Incorporating a couple of the above suggestions, etc.

Kirk

[MikeFairbanks]

I went and worked on it a bit. Upped the contrast and brightness a tad, but decided to desaturate the color a little as well. And, of course, I got out my pruning sheers and fixed up the hedge a bit. ;) Finally, I sharpened it up a bit.

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q295/thepirannah/ConfederateMemorial6.jpg

[shutterbugcrazy]

Just a quick messing here. I boost color with velvia vision, then I did some burning and dodging on the tower and roof tops, removed the dead bushes and finally I applied unsharp mask with these settings (amount 89, radius 1, threshold 4) while in lab color mode to the "lighness" tab only
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/3117/confederatememorial.jpg (http://img143.imageshack.us/i/confederatememorial.jpg/)