Stills

Taken at the magic moment. Beautiful.

I am reminded of a favourite of mine by Michael Hoefner where a slice of green grass is just visible through some grey concrete architecture.
 

Well seen, well framed, very good. I just wish the exposure was about a third or half a stop lower because of the burned highlights. Somewhat deeper shadows would ply well with well textured highlights on this subject and make for a great photograph.
 

This is a challenge for dynamic range. Maybe Stephane is right. In b/w the balance of extremes is more important, whereas in colour the burning out of the light would be more atmospheric. A nice pattern though and the contrasting of materials and how they are used is of interest.
 

I thought about bringing the highlights down a bit, but I decided the brightness played a roll in the dynamics of the light. The highlights are actually pretty far from burnt out; a quick check of the histogram will reveal plenty of room on the right.

The contrast is pretty challenging for a computer screen, particularly an LCD. For example this looks fine on my laptop and on the Mac display in my office, but the shadows are deeper and the brights are duller and less detailed on the cheaper Dell displays on my workstation.

The print of this adds another complication, as everything is dropped down a bit. The highlights are not quite as bright and the shadows are deeper. I'm fine with the way all the various display options render this, they are just different.
 

A wonderful observation and well composed -- the range of tone looks near perfect on my Apple Cinema display.
 

I loaded it in PhotoShop. indeed most of the highlights don't go as high as they could and I don't find that a particularly good idea. Some does, making it more complicated to recover contrast in the highlights. There very little contrast there, by the way, nearly none, making it impossible to get a good texture in that area. I am nitpicking, of course.
 

Stéphane, can you explain your comment a bit further as I am not sure I understand.
 

I can imagine that the print comes nearer to a richer set of dark tones, if I can use that phrase; I know that if I printed this it would come out 'darker'. I have a bright TFT and although I can see that this is not burnt out, I just want something darker to balance that light outside and at the top. In some ways I hanker after the warmth of the colour as well! But that would make it something else.
 

I think understand Stéphane's point about the lack of contrast in the highlights, and it's valid critique. I'm not sure what to do about it.

I played around some layering in PS to bring down the highlights and increase the contrast in them, but it just ended up looking like one of those awful HDR shots. The light didn't look natural anymore. Part of the problem is that the pavement just doesn't have that much contrast in reality particularly when being hit by angular sun like in the picture. How does one go about putting in contrast that isn't there.

John, a little darker wouldn't be too hard to accomplish, but my intent with this was to show the light as opposed to the shadows.
 

I love shadows and more and more of my work is drawn towards the shapes and images they make. This is well handled and makes for a very interesting viewing experience. Patterns galore and the odd bit of jetsam to add to the proceedings - especially the bottom right. Leave the highlights - it adds a certain glow which balances well with the darkness bottom left.
 

Agreed with leave it as is -- I can imagine I see detail in the highlight areas and also in the darkest shadows. I don't see how you could improve on what is there, especially in a web view. There is plenty of fine detail where it really counts.