Cimitiere de Montmartre

One of a series of pictures I made in the Cimetiere de Montmartre, Paris, where many of the city's leading citizens are buried, such as musicians, engineers, poets and politicians.I think this works better in black and white than colour.[IMG]http://i799.photobucket.com/albums/yy273/Davidtrout2/Neighboursineternityver2.jpg[/IMG] C+C welcome.

Am I missing something or has David forgotten to post the image?

K.

Don't know, I can see an image all right...

I agree that B&W works well with pictures like this. I think the light is not the best for the shot, I'm missing the mystic cemetery atmosphere.
I imagine it quite hard to stop shooting there...

Prieni

I find it overly harsh and too repetitive with no focal point nor any element that draws the eye in any particular way. I think that maybe some adjustment of the crop might help but not one that works for me.

Mike

It's all very confusing for the eye, far too much going on for me. What kind of B&W conversion did you carry out ? It almost seems like one of those fake IR shots.

How strange, worked that time.

Normally I am a big fan of David's photographs but I find this shot a bit too busy for my liking.

Best wishes, Kris.

I think the "busyness" is part of the point of the photo. I like it a lot.

It seems to say that you're not alone when you're dead!

G

That's Pere-Lachaise isn't? Did you visit Jim Morrison's grave? That was quite a circus when I was there.

I have to say I agree with that the conversion looks a bit strange and the composition don't really reflect that you have chosen what we should see and how. But ok, the cemetary is pretty unorganized as well.

When was the picture taken - not recently?

Thanks for the comments. The place is so overwhelmingly crowded with graves and tombs that I think I was like a kid turned lose in a candy factory - I lost all sense of objectivity and wasn't totally focused on where to point the camera. I submitted this picture because of it's architectural appeal, same shapes but different scale, to the modern towers at La Defense where I spent a lot of my time in Paris.
Ralf: The light was flat and I had to overwork the contrast in Photoshop.
RR: Its a straight desaturation job in the RAW converter, the above mentioned contrast adjustments might have given it that semi IR appearance.
Kris, yes I agree the shot is too crowded.
Mike: I tried different crops, but didn't find one I was too comfortable with.
Joe: Didn't see Jim Morrison's grave but there are thousands in there.
George: Thanks, a fan at last. The place had a strange affect on me, all those dead famous people.
I came away knowing I hadn't got a killer shot despite making many images, but I was determined to get at least one usable picture out of it. I was happy I found the grave of one of my musical heroes, Hector Berlioz, and found an Irish pub nearby where they did wonderful bangers and mash which raised my spirits.
david

PS: Joe, the picture was taken in early June, this year.

I'm with the consensus, I'm afraid David. My first reaction was that you'd overdone the contrast - which is apparently right. The bottom part (the graves) are turning into a negative. While the trees look like they could have been cut and pasted as a backdrop. I can see how this effect could work in a graveyard shot, but for me it doesn't in this case. Sorry!

Looking at it again (and in the bigger, 1024 x 723 sized version) I think it does work for me. I guess it is one of these cases where the image gets better the bigger it is, most probably because it is a bit busy. But there is so much to explore...

Prieni