I'm going to give it to you straight Mike....CRAP!

Ooo, I do love stirring up a nest of Hornets

Seriously though, I quite like it, or at least I would if it wasn't for the ADT alarm box and the security camera. I think this would be a far stronger image with both those cloned out, leaving the shadow in the bottom right competing with that "vent"? on the "roof"?

Do the suggested cloning and I'll give it 9/10

One of the things I do like about this is the way it got my mind trying to decide if those tiles were vertical cladding of sorts or actually the roof? but they cant be the roof tiles unless you've changed the perspective of the top half.

I'm sure you will enlighten me.

Unless of course Pentax are going to present the camera world with another "first" and have something different but equally as good up their sleeves.

IMO I think Pentax may be returning to the smaller camera with the next model, imagine the istD with 14MP, Shake Reduction and Video, and what about a Wireless connection to a nearby laptop or PC

On reflection and after playing with the cropping myself I think the lampost needs to stay, but I still think it needs cropping on the left and lightening up a little, and the litter still has to go.

And I did assume the vignette was deliberate, it fits in too nicely with the sepia tone to be anything alse.

You should have your camera head on all the time

I think it needs lightening and a bit more contrast, and I would either crop the lampost or clone it out, but definately clone out that square bit of litter on the left. I quite like the vignette, was it deliberate or serendipitous (thats posh for cock up)

Thanks guys.
Well now I've commited it to paper (A3 glossy print) I'm much happier with it.

I see dirty streaks on the first and last shots, couldn't you have polished it first

I like the second shot best.

Nice one Stefan.

Despite its obvious lack of technical quality this is a very powerfull image, it just proves we dont need technical perfection to convey emotion or capture the "moment"

PS; did you get them to sign a model release form

I bet your feeling like a teenager without a mobile phone

I Finally decided on a crop and played around with Kens idea, changing the settings slightly, I then created a circular gradient mask and totally desaturated the outer area of the image.

I also discovered quite by accident that if you go into levels to adjust the image and forget to exit the Quick Mask you can fine tune the size of the masked area using the levels adjustment sliders, something else to play with

So this is it for now even though I feel those branches on the right are a bit overpowering, I'll probably still be playing around with it this time next year

[IMG]http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j168/impotentspider/_IGP6428b.jpg[/IMG]

Commiserations Martin, out thought are with you.