Cleveland, Ohio -

I think there's too much going on in this picture. Don't really see a main subject of this picture.

Is a lot going on, but I believe the main focus to be the bridge and the rusty door.

I like the old bridge, but with the skyscraper in the background, which was careful not to cut off the flag on top.

Nice shot, but maybe try to lighten up the shadows a little bit.

Thanks for the comments! I did mean for the door and bridge to be the subject with the terminal tower as the background to provide a sense of where it all is.

Maybe I should crop out some of the left side to make it look less busy?

What is the best way to lighten the shadows without blown out highlights?

~Wee

kingwee wrote in post #3612926
What is the best way to lighten the shadows without blown out highlights?

~Wee

Play with the levels and/or curves a bit

Take the magic wand tool and set it at 25 pixels at first. Click on the shadows if it hasn't captured enough hold the shift key and keep doing it till you have what you want captured then switch to quick mask and grab the eraser tool and go in and clean up all the red you see in the area you want to clean up. Do the same with the paint brush in areas you don't want captured. Then switch it out of quick two boxes at the bottom of the tools to double check what you've captured then adjust in levels or curves.

Any Better? Or not so much?

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Hi Kingwee - you are a person after my own heart, photographing one of my favorite venues.... the CITY in all it's crumbly glory . I love the level of detail, with all the textures and contrast. The urban landscape is often a busy place, and I feel strong images should reflect that.

I like what you are trying to do here with the sharp high contrast angles. I'm going to hazard a guess that you shot this early in the morning, one of my favorite times of day for this sort of thing. It would be interesting to see this shot in B/W also.
If you are curious, take a look at my blog, where I talk about various aspects of the city:

http://www.pearlphoto.​blogspot.com/

I also have a gallery of Cleveland photos that may interest you:

http://www.pbase.com/s​apearl/cleveland_flats

In the meantime, keep up the good work. - Stu

I don't know if you shoot RAW, but for this type of high contrast photography it can really help out a lot when trying to reclaim some lost shadow detail.

Also, the use of a CPL is often very beneficial. It will give you better color saturation, reduce glare (none here) deepen the blue of the sky and make your clouds stand out more.

Lovin' your photo I'm only an hour south of Cleveland! I love photographing old doors- do you have more?

Very nice, I'd like to see a bit more detail in the shadows, but otherwise very well done!

I love these kinds of shots as well.

KAC
P.S. I see you done a bit of that in the subsequent images.

Thanks for all the suggestions and the kind words!

Stuart, the photos of Cleveland on your site are really amazing!

I've lived in Cleveland for 18 years and go back frequently. I have more from that very clear day, but this was really the only one I thought was of any interest, or hasn't been done before.