Help!

i can't put my finger on it, but i'm not happy with this picture. i like it enough to post it here, so that makes me think that there may be a good photograph somewere in there, but i just can't convince it to come out... so any advice, edits, critiques, thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

First, neat photo. I like it. One area I see a problem is (and I'm not sure if I'm using the term correctly) is keystoning. The stone structure on the right is angled to the right; it's not going straight up. A little tweaking in photoshop would take care of that (under lens correction).

I straightened the building (and did a bad pshop job on the bottom left). Does straightening make it look better to you?

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I edited it to straighten things out...

My only thought is that color may be more effective for this one, as the sky and trees might contrast against the stone well (depending on what color the stone is...) ...and I tweaked the brightness/contrast for my liking, which is just my $0.02...

Hope this helps!

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Much better; much stronger. The natural framing of the vertical structure did wonders. Would like to see the color one as well.

The straightening out is an improvement. Perhaps something or someone of interest on the stairs?

Aside from the straightening issue, I think the one thing I'm seeing here that I don't like is that the lighting is too harsh. It makes the brick work look to contrasty and the shadows under the hand railing kind of stick out and draw my attention. I think an early morning/late evening shot from this same position might have worked better. Also, with morning/evening lighting, I'd also like to see it in color, but that's my own personal taste there.

Peace,
Jim

Thanks for the advice! i straightened out both the color and b&w one, so tell me what you think!

The stone building is just so huge that it blocks me from going any further into the photo..the color version is much nicer.but it is very in your face.(to me anyways

The huge stone building does take up too much of the frame. For my style personally, I chose to do the following; curves adjustments (selectively applied using layer masks), desaturation (rather than full black and white), made the color temperature a little warmer, and then a little dodging and burning. It came out like this: