[Recovered Thread: 89344]

[pj1974]

Peripatetic,

I realise photography often is very much a subjective matter, and ofone's personal tastes. While I quite like the colours, I also respect what you've said and can appreciate where you're coming from in terms of perhaps not being enough interesting colour in the tree, grass, bricks to balance the bright blue sky and white clouds.

So your b&w edit makes for an interesting change! thanks for sharing this way too!

Paul

[pj1974]

Hello Bahadir!

Well, I'm glad you gave your thoughts, comments and your version of an edit too! All very helpful. There have been a number of times the "kiss" (keep it simple, stupid!) was taught to me, in my university studies, handling cross-cultural situations, areas dealing with religion, and now photography in a way too!

I still have to fine tune the art of sharpening so that a balance between added sharpness and yet not to many introduced artifacts are incurred. I realise it's dependent also on the final "resize" too. Thanks for your thoughts about using additional contrast and levels to compensate.

As you would have, I would also like to have the tree from free-standing. And not so tightly cropped at the right. Indeed as you said, "other trees were ready to infest" from the right!I didn't (yet) have time to use my mouse and hack away at the other trees with a clone tool...

For some reason I so much liked the top part / section of cloud I kept it in, though maybe there IS a bit too much sky. Your edit is an interesting alternative.

Thanks, Paul

[pj1974]

Greetings Ken!

I really appreciate you looking and your comments also.

I think you got the feeling the way I did about this photo, your words perhaps better express my feelings than my own previous words did! :-)

And yes, I did think of wanting to clone out some of those extra / excess trees along the horizon to simplify the shot further and bring out the "lone" tree feeling. But thanks for your kind comments on this quick photo I took and the very basic crop / edit that I posted.

Maybe when I have a few more minutes on my hand I'll post a version with your suggestions...

however again anyone feel free to try and beat me!!

Paul

[SteveDak]

Can't really add much to that which has already been said, PJ. I like it, more especially the edited version you posted which seems to have a tad more life about it. I like the angle that you've taken this shot from as well which emphasis the 'fortress' on high ground aspect. Very . I love historical sites of any kind - do you have any idea of the history behind this one?

[JunixRose]

I do like the second version better. Going for a summery feel I took it a bit further. I touched the levels, shadows, saturation, hue, and contrast a little. A little layering to keep the contrast from blowing out one cloud. Hope you like it.

Nate

[In search of Syd]

Very pleasant shot PJ. I too would love to know a bit about those ruins. All the edits look great except the B & W which I feel just doesn't suit this shot.

Syd

[pj1974]

Hi SteveDak,

Can't really add much to that which has already been said, PJ. I like it, more especially the edited version you posted which seems to have a tad more life about it. I like the angle that you've taken this shot from as well which emphasis the 'fortress' on high ground aspect. Very . I love historical sites of any kind - do you have any idea of the history behind this one?

Glad you like the photo and particularly last edit I had made too. (I think Nate has done a nice "final edit" after that too!)

Indeed it is part of a fortress on high ground. A bit of a summary of the summery fort :-)

It's located in Rupea, a small township between the town of Sighisoara (famous medieval town) and Brasov (popular Romanian city & tourist destination). Rupea (or Kohalom as the local Hungarian name) is about 48 minutes from Brasov where my fiancee lives, so I pass it every 2nd or 3rd weekend and I'm glad it's in the last hour of my 5 hour journey from Cluj (north west Transylvania) to Brasov. So I've passed it many times!!

In this area are a number of listed world heritage areas. see http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/596and http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/902

Basically these are fortresses and centres built mainly by Saxon folk in Transylvania. This particular site is of 1621 so not so old as some of the others. I discovered that date yesterday when I went to visit it with a friend after returning from Brasov. And I've went to the outside many a time, but I never went actually went in and paid the 20,000 lei (70c US) entry fee till yesterday, because of time and believe it or not 70c still means something to me as a charity worker! :G

Well it's a fairly big fortress. The picture above is just a small crumbling wall section of a much larger area, at the top of a hill. A road circumnavigates it (I made a few panoramas which I might try to post if they fit on this site resized...) The hill it is on is very conspicuous and obviously was a good site to defend against enemies. Wars between Romanians, Hungarians, Turks and Austrians were fought in these areas for many years.

Well as I was with a friend and the local gardener (who collected our 2 x 20,000 lei fee) told us there are a number of interesting features, e.g. this fortress has many angles e.g. walls and turrets at 7 degrees to perpendicular (for some reason) and a well that is 60metres deep (an engineering "feat" in those days.. no pun intended for the imperial system users amongst us!) This fortress is supported or on the Prince Charles charity / history / heritage centre list (or something like that).

Neither I, nor my local friend I was with speak fluent Romanian, so we couldn't catch all the details (both of us speak Hungarian, a regional / minority language in this region, but the gardener / guard didn't speak Hungarian). Anyway, it's a fascinating site. And I'll definitely hope to go back in the summer for a picnic, it's not at all touristy. Actually the charity I work with held a training camp in Rupea a few years ago and they climbed the hill and went into the fortress for daily outings and "break times". (I wasn't on that camp... I had contracted hepatitis A at the time!) But they had told me and said it has a fascinating history.

Well, as the saying goes, a picture speaks a thousand words. And if my photos might qualify to share at least a few hundre words a piece, maybe I should shut up now and save time by just posting a few photos. So I'll do that after answering the other comments other folk have made, to give you an impression what the rest of it looks like...

Hope this satisfies your history hunger.... :blah:

Paul

[pj1974]

JunixRose wrote:

I do like the second version better. Going for a summery feel I took it a bit further. I touched the levels, shadows, saturation, hue, and contrast a little. A little layering to keep the contrast from blowing out one cloud. Hope you like it.

Nate

Hi Nate,

You've done a great edit. I had wanted to try a version like this, but was scared I'd blow the highlights and didn't have the time to mess around with it in the past 24 hours... so thanks!!! it's great! (and as I see I'll have to get more informed about layering!)

Cheers

Paul (more photos soon!)

[pj1974]

In search of Syd wrote:

Very pleasant shot PJ. I too would love to know a bit about those ruins. All the edits look great except the B & W which I feel just doesn't suit this shot.

Syd

Hi Syd!

Well, your curiousity for more info also allowed me the motivation to answer Steve's request about it's history in as much detail as I did, so really I should have wrote: "for Steve and Syd" above... in that LONG post....

Thanks for looking, glad you like the shot and the edits... and I hope you and Peripatetic will make up... :blah: (I've been following your debates in other posts...) I guess on this one I agree with you the colour one seems to suit more, though I value both your input very much on these forums. I'm sure like good ol' chums we all get along in the end! :G

so, you shall soon see some more photos (below)... Just bear with me I don't have time to do major edits on them, just some quick USM, contrast, color adjustments ... and of course a resize. And I MIGHT try to add the panoramas if they fit on and it's possible...

Thanks again for your comments and curiousity, Syd.

Paul

[pj1974]

Here is the Rupea fortress (a few months ago)in a typical Transylvanian January layer of snow... (view from near the main road, highway E60- that is part of the "Paris to Istanbul" road! :-))

Paul