the Old Boat House by Darren Rivers
darren Says… This shot was taken with a Canon EOS 6D and the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art lens. It was taken during a visit to Plumpton Rocks, not far from Knaresborough, North Yorkshire. As I walked around the lake I came across a door which lead to an old boat house, where I found this scene, and thought it would make an interesting photo. I shot the photo in Raw and lightly edited it in Photoshop, then added a filter from the Topaz Texture 2 plug-in for the final effect you see in the image.
Brian Says… Looks like it was an interesting location. I’m inclined to mentally crop the photo on the right side to remove the sharp hard edge, and this would move the boat a little more off-centre. I’m not adverse to filters and adding textures but, in this case, the effect looks fake over the hard edge on the side. There is also a strange look in the shadows in front of the bow of the boat: with the filter there appears to be a light source in the top-left corner of the image going towards the boat, but that leaves me wondering why the front of it is dark.
Finally, with the huge range of brightness in the frame, it might have been an idea to try bracketing or HDR, or perhaps creating a monochrome version.