decayed boat composition

Below is a photo I thought had a lot of potential, but I am not sure how to get the best from it. I doubt I could have taken a better angle originally.

Here is a crop and some light processing, but I think it could be improved upon:

Something in between, I think, with respect to the cropping. The cropped one leaves my eye wondering what was cut off on the left.

I'm thinking that you can just darken the areas around the boat and remove some of the distracting objects. Here's a quick edit that I did:

Thanks for the (very speedy!) edit frugivore.
I started by removing the distracting boats as you did, but I hadn't thuoght of darkening the boat behind (and pontoon) I think that is effective.

I like that the boat looks kind of HDR, though it isn't.

joedlh wrote in post #15061694
Something in between, I think, with respect to the cropping. The cropped one leaves my eye wondering what was cut off on the left.

I agree.

I think this has potential. I would like to see a B&W version. If I get some time tonight I may try.

i had a go at it, cleaned up the hoses and some other things. tweaked it in topaz adjust

Here is my go at it. I think I may have lost too many details in the conversion though:

Cutting out the tarp-wrapped background boat seems a good idea as several of you did. The increased saturation and contract in mikexlt's version are great additions IMO.

Can you just photoshop the big barge out of the background? Kidding.
Has to be the cropped one.

I don't think there is much here to work with.

I honestly don't think either image works. Good concept, but just try again from a different angle, or maybe just find a different decayed boat in a different place.

But as far as what's working, I've gotta go with the original uncropped image. I've gotta be honest, it's not working for me (I think you know that, which is why you cropped it in the first place). But it's a nice idea. The subject matter sort of has a little bit of impact, I think, even if stuff like the composition isn't working. What that image has and the other doesn't, is context. I just find the relationship between the boat and the rest of the environment to be far more interesting than just the relationship between the front of the boat and the water.

Looking at it JUST in terms of image composition, I prefer the crop. But in tightening up the composition and eliminating clutter, you've also cut out a lot of stuff that is actually important and provides context to the image, and gives the boat meaning beyond simply "colors and shapes within a composition". The crop is more abstract, and I have nothing wrong with abstract, but I don't know if that's the way to go here. Your original intent, the thing you wanted to capture, seemed to be ALL about relationships and context concerning the boat within the surrounding environment. That didn't quite work, so you did a crop. And yeah...I guess maybe the crop is better. But you're not doing it any favors by posting it alongside the original, that makes it very obvious EXACTLY what it's missing. Furthermore, even though I guess I'd say "it's a better image", it really bothers me saying that. Because in making it a better image, it almost seems like you've betrayed the entire point of making the capture in the first place.

I guess my advice is just, shoot again. Don't get me wrong, you've got some really great ideas here. But what you were trying to do didn't work. The wide shot of the boat within the context of the larger environment isn't going to be fixed with a crop, you're gonna have to either go back and shoot it again (only differently this time, or maybe even look for other scenes that contain ruined boats). Alternatively, the crop does open up the potential for doing a tighter more abstract kind of route, but I suspect it'd be better to do another shoot specifically with that intended goal in mind.

Now you've got two potentially really good ways to approach that boat. But I'd still recommend a reshoot. Neither image is really working for me. The lighting is very harsh in both versions. In the original image, the composition is just getting really cluttered. And I don't think that the crop makes full potential of the "abstract" angle, since you're just working off of the harsh lighting and object positioning that was present in the original.

So yeah...reshoot.

But I definitely love the idea, and think there's a lot of potential for it.

i had a quick go too

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Byte size: ZERO | PHOTOBUCKET ERROR IMAGE

stillinamerica wrote in post #15063552
Can you just photoshop the big barge out of the background?

This is what I would have liked to have taken.

I don't like interfering with the scene's I find - perhaps I should have cast the less interesting background boat off for a few minutes - not sure the boatyard would have appreciated me doing that!

Loving all the replies and edits! Thank you all!

The boat was in on a minute island that we sailed in a dinghy to in Denmark. Unlikely to visit there again.