Activity - dark_lord

Clearly people hav plnty of money despite the cost of living 'crisis'. Or perhaps they don't care (or even don't realise) until the credit card bills appear next month. Or perhaps some are just going there to find a warm space..

Welcome back, and I'm late to this too.

I have to agree that there aretwo imaes here. My eye is constantly pulled between the castle and the passageway. When that happens it's an indication the composition isn't effective. It's something we all do from time to time and the trick is to spot it when setting up, though sometimes it only becomes apparent when viewing on screen later. Th ery dark area separating the two parts of the scene only adds to that effect.

However, I think Pamela's mod shows that a satisfactory outcome is possible. That's because the crop has made the castle more prominent, the bright wall on the left edge is reduced and much less of a distraction, and importantly the increase in shadow detail helps to bring the two ineresting parts of the scene together.. The street lamp also then isn't so dominant as the relative brightness of it and the background is less. If the lmp is there it should play a supportng role

So while it is worth going back and taking two imges, with a little adjustment to position and post processing your original idea does stand up.

Welcome back from metoo, it's been a long time since you werelast here.

Moira has added her comment while I've been looking at this.
I agree the vegetation in theforegound is scruffy and not attractive, and is a distraction from the main scene. Using foreground interest is good, o provide depth. However, I'm guessing that if there is more to include here it will be quite messy so in that situation if you can't adjust position to include omething less distracting or more complementary, such as a wall or gate or animl, thencropping the image is the best option.

Are you happy with this?
John makes a good point about this lacking something. The colour balance is cool, it lackssome 'punch' (a small increase in contrast would be welcome) so it's not so eyecatching and the colous would benefit fom greater saturation. Pastel colours are attractive of course, and you may like the rendition here but generally we'd expect more vibrance, especially as the light is good.

So really, it's a decent record of the scene, and if that's what you wanted then that's ok.
All photographers will interpre ttheimagein their own way so my mod is just a suggestion

I reduced the overall brightness so it wasn't so pale and incrased Vibrance as well aa warming the Colour Balance. This made the colours richer. I cropped a lot of foreground to concentrate on the vistaand cropped off the half tree on the left edge. A small brighter spot at the edge is a distraction, so either include it fully or remove it. I then darkened the sky more in order to make good use of the texture of the clouds.
As I say, my interpretation but hopefully some ideas to consider.

Open but not inviting.

I've never seen one of these, quite fascinating, great find Jeff.

Hope you're getting over that bug.
Looks like they're hiding the food in the darkness so you don't know what you're getting for your mystery lunch.

I wouldn't say this is abstract in the truest sense.

I take abstract to be something extracted from the greaterhole, uch as details that may or may not be immediately recognisable, and may or may not be sharp. Think shadows of stairs on a wall or ICM, one sharp the other not but abstract in their own way.

I say extracting a detal, and as n illustration we 'abstract' water from an aquifer or write an 'abstract' summarising an academic paper.

But as ever there are degrees of abstract.
Then we can consider 'abstract interpretation' which I would put this image as. It's definitely not a record shot. The essentials are there but not the detail so there is an element of abstraction here. It's perfectly valid of course to say that an extreme close up of the daisy centre and partofsome petals is absract, even eith all the fine detail visible.

That may or may not have helped, this has abstract qualities so I'd be happy enough to include it. Impressionism is also appropriate I think. There's no reason an image is exclusively in one category.
As for competition, it depends on how narrow or wide the judges cast their net.

All that said, yes it's an attractive image, no question ther.
But as you mention the composition, I think this would suit a square crop very well. Single flowers do lend themselves to that.