[matthew]

Two recent and related images:

[enviroguy]

Hi, Matthew! These are very interesting. I probably would never have thought of photographing these scenes. They are effective studies of nice diagonal lines of the stairs and railings superimposed upon the horizontal lines of the bricks. The first is very stark and appears almost as a sillhouette of the stairs/railings against the monochromatic bricks. I think I like the second one a bit more. There, the stairs and railings almost appear in 3D, effectively raised against the visible texture of the bricks. I suppose the lighting of that scene assisted in rendering this effect. Both are interesting studies well done! Regards....Dennis

[wulinka]

Hey there,

I love the lighting and texture of the first one. The neutral gray tones also fit the subject very well and I like them better than the warmer ones of the second, particularly in side-by-side comparison. composition is clear and neat, again, cleaner than the second and I like that.

Good stuff!! Uli

[craig]

are these "in camera" b/w or post? Personaly the first is my favourite, i like the round electrical box and the diagonal beam under the stairs (was that already there or did you place it?), lots to look at - thanks

[matthew]

Thanks, I really appreciate the feedback.

Dennis, I'm with you on this one, I prefer the second one as well. It's the added depth and texture of the wall that does it for me.

Uki, thanks, and it's great to see you again. I hope your father had a good birthday. I do like the lines and structure of the first image, but I do wish that it had a little more pop. I also can't believe that I presented it here with such a bad case of converging (horizontal) verticals.

Craig, I didn't change anything in the composition, but I was fairly selective. I only use raw capture, so B&W in-camera isn't something I use, but these were actually shot in IR so there was no colour variation to begin with. So the second one isn't actually toned at all, what I did was left some of the red by not completely desaturating the image.