First B&W Landscapes

Inspired by my new Lee Filters "Big Stopper" I went out in search of something arty at the weekend. So, here are a couple of my feeble attempts at B&W landscape. Normally I shoot birds and sport so this was a bit of something new for me.

Obviously quite a bit of messing about with levels and other stuff in PP but opinions on the final result would be appreciated

I used my 5D2, 17 40 and the ND filter on the pic without the bridge. Pic with bridge was handheld

Also not too sure on how to size these correctly so I saved them as pretty low quality from iPhoto and hoped for the best! If someone can tell me how to size them correctly I would also be grateful. I guess PSE8 would give me more options if I knew what to do! (Edit: Just checked out the copies on the forum and they are nowhere near the quality of the real images obviously. I need to get a Flickr site or something going properly )

So, give it your best shot guys. I await constructive criticism

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They are both very interesting, but I'm leaning toward the first one. The view is more 'open' and there's more space for the eye to travel, as well as the line of the fence that connects to the bridge in the right hand corner.

I'm partial to gorgeous skies, as well, and this one's beautiful. =)

The second..I'm not sure where to look, and the similar tones between the foreground objects make it difficult to decide what to look at. There again, if you enjoy studying photos, things keep popping out at you the more you look at it.

Toxictv. I agree with your comments there and have had a quick edit on the levels etc to try and differentiate the background and foreground details

Heres my second attempt

The low res quality doesn't really do it justice. It looks much better on my Mac but I think you get the idea

Thanks for the feedback

G

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I really like both images. Each image has its strengths.
#1 - The eye runs along the shore L to R and catches the bridge across the middle, but then there's the sky...Is it too much? It seems there's a lot of medium grey tone there. Would help if there were a better dynamic range in the sky. Otherwise composition and concept are great.
#2 - Nice strong foreground pulls you in. Smooth sky is a very contrasting idea against a rugged foreground. The perspective here could be improved IMO. Elevate the camera a little more and reduce the amount of sky by the same proportion.
Thanks for posting.

Hm..maybe take out a bit of the sky?

BTW, everything looks better on a mac xD

Just changed my user profile to allow picture editing so you don't get into trouble from the mods

Whoops, thanks. Newbie on this forum =p

Heres a third one. Think I may need to lighten the left hand side slightly

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Hm..you -could- expound upon the darkness you already have on the left side, and use a vignette effect to really bring out the center of the photo, while cutting down on the skies a bit. I do like this one overall though, kind of ghostly and reminiscent.