Branksome Chine, Bournemouth

[robnaylor]

Taken on the same day as the Hengistbury Head images, but further along the coast.
Still very wet and very cold with a healthy sea breeze coming in. I changed the processing this time, by using selective foreground contrast adjustment and sharpening, to make the scene look crispy cold and wet instead of the misty, drizzly, windblown look of the Hengistbury Head images.
I was pleasantly surprised with how different it turned out.

[chrisc]

I almost think the transition between the really sharp and the not so sharp is too quick. I'd go that sharp to about where the person in the umbrella is, do a second selection to where you ended the first and knock the sharpen down to about 50-60%,then fade out the rest accordingly.

Did you add the fog effect, or is it natural? Either or, it works okay at the top of the hillside but no so much at the bottom.

I do like the way you use the curvature of the walk to draw the eye right to left around the image (contrary to how we normally read, and really like how you've used the one family heading toward the beach, intersecting with everyone else walking at a 90 degree angle from them. Nice juxtaposition. Eisenstein would love you.

I am not sure if you noticed, but there is a railing which goes the same direction as the family, contrasted by a second railing with follows the line of everyone else, further down the shot, thus reiterating the Eisenstein sense of cinematic montage. I guess, if one looks at the overall image, this theme is repeated throughout the shot. Either by serendipitous luck, or by a careful eye's observation, the repeated pattern really holds this image together.

[robnaylor]

Thanks for the lesson teach - I needed that, I think all said and done I am happy with it as is.

In answer to your last "rather wordy" paragraph - "pure luck"