Colorful Desolation

Just wondering what you guys think of this one.I walked the scene for dozen minutes until I could capture the building, the two trees and the airplane trails. Some contrast and color adjustments have been done to make it pop. I tried to go grim yet colorful.

Any and all CC are welcome!

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I would have sacrificed one or both of the trees to properly capture and focus on the house as a subject. I am not convinced that capturing the sky trails was that important given the other elements in the shot. A good sky is important but sky trails as a back drop to an old house...not so much.
If you could have framed the house with one of the trees overlapping (move around to the right), this might have been a better grouping/composition.
Good snow exposure. I would like to see this lit by golden hour light...this looks to "noonish" where the sun is high.

See here for good example of what I mean
http://sun-surfer.com …-abandoned-house-672.html

This is my first post here. I am a hobbyist, but to my eye and taste I agree with Spike44 that closer is better, framing and a different light would do wonders. I am not far from Barrie, in Muskoka, but many of these old houses in my area have fallen down although the apple trees still remain. If you could walk up this and catch a portion of the house and the sky trails that would be effective but you would lose the trees. I would be tempted to go into the house, expose for the outside with the trees and fill flash an outstanding component of the interior, although I would not recommend going upstairs. Use your wide angle zoom and see what happens.

Thanks guys, I think you're right: more is less. I'm still struggling with that concept. I did capture a zoomed in version of that house and a few different angles (see below, SOOC sorry for bleak colors). Shooting from the right side of the house didn't give anything of interest, too much clutter. Front had something more interesting, but... I don't know, looks flat.

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the first is best by far.

photoshop out the middle tree or crop the bottom left of the image tighter to the house and lose the third tree

Crop the first one so that your eyes dont instantly go to the white streaks in the blue sky. To much space on that side of the picture.

Good job on the different views....the 3rd is the best view and you were able to integrate the tree very well plus the house on an angle is more interesting than the straight on in #2...but #2 is not bad
All you need is a lower light to pick up the snow textures ....dress warm and go back early in the morning or late afternoon....you will be amazed at the quality of the light, the shadows and the colour (blue) of the snow.
Otherwise, I would edit your scene to emphasize the sky and snow like this:

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Okay, for my learning's sake, let's use the first one and use a tighter crop, would this below work? Or is it still too much?

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#1 is rather a tight crop in the first place. Nevertheless, I like it very much. Sometimes less is more; but many other times less is a bore!

Not sure how the original could be considered a tight crop....regardless, I much prefer your new version keeping one tree in view without taking away from the house...well done.
I still prefer the #3

Spike44 wrote in post #16705150
Not sure how the original could be considered a tight crop....regardless, I much prefer your new version keeping one tree in view without taking away from the house...well done.
I still prefer the #3

The house and the base of the trees are too close to the edges for comfort;the debris on the left is practically touching the edge. You have to remember that it's good practice to leave some leeway for printing (yeah, I need to drill this into my head repeatedly).

I like your last crop, makes the house the main focal point of the picture.

I like the first shot the best, but don't care for the contrails so thought I'd see how it would look without them. What do you think?

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Unrising Muffin wrote in post #16704908
Okay, for my learning's sake, let's use the first one and use a tighter crop, would this below work? Or is it still too much?

I think that crop nails it. House is off center but clearly the main focus of the picture, got rid of most of that sky, have the tree in there to balance it and give it a bit of a foreground. As I say in this forum every other week or so, I always consider sky to be dead space unless there is actually something going on up there - cool clouds, a sunset, a UFO, etc. So just get rid of most of it.

Thanks folks, much appreciated!