IMAGEs by DEN

Photographer's Comments:

. . ."a deteriorating house I encountered in a field along a gravel road on the northwest coast of Cape Breton Island, within the Highlands (Nova Scotia). Its placement in the field appealed to me as soon as I saw it. Heavy surf is crashing below an abutment just out of sight to the left of the image. A beautiful, secluded spot. When on vacation, my wife and I often succumb to "I wonder what's down that road..." and just take off driving. We discovered later, during a whale watch along that same shoreline, that had we traveled to the end of that gravel road, we would have come upon a monastery of Buddhist monks, who had purchased a large parcel of land in this out-of-the-way location so that they could practice their faith in relative seclusion. They have since acclimated to their surroundings and the locals so well, that they field a softball team each year to challenge the locals - at which they are summarily defeated, but keep coming back for more!

I'm most interested in House - so that works out well. I shot it with a Canon EF 70-200 f2.8L zoomed in considerably, by necessity - I was back on the gravel road, surrounded by private property. The wind was blowing off the ocean at about 40 miles an hour, and despite waiting for an opening, you can see the violent movement in the foreground wildflowers. Overall focus is soft, probably part zoom-related, but more RAW-related - without any sharpening action having been done.

Re: what I had in mind for the image after post-processing... At capture, I envisioned the eye being drawn to and concentrating on the house detail first, of course, then drifting down diagonally from its upper corner position through the rocks to the flowers lower left, taking in general detail, then back to the house. The wind had its own idea with that vision, but I thought I might still get the effect with blurred flowers. Camera cropping was also necessary to eliminate some unappealing distractions in front of the flowers. I pictured the weathered house popping from the darkish green background - which I've failed to achieve so far in my own attempt - still a bit flat as I recall. There is a hot spot on the roof area, very bright without detail. It catches my attention immediately in my version - I'd would like to mask it and improve upon that in some manner. A door area on the fallen down house section that faces upward into the sun - very bright as well. These bother me more than the flower blur. In the end, my capture of the image may not be adequate to allow my vision - not the first or last time, I suspect. But I'm trying to make the most of it.". . .
. . .CS. . .