theme: St. Francis

This is a statue of St. Francis in New Harmony, Indiana. Poster and cutout, slight cropping and adjustments.

I like the swans framing the statue Hazel and the cut-out and poster edges are very effective. I wish the birds were highlighted by the green grass in the bg, so you could see them flying into the air.

Cool idea! I wonder about cropping about half the dark off the bottom. On your master file it would be nice to leave room for text there, though. Or, if the statue was added as a separate layer, slide it down so, as Jackie said, the top o the birds aren't lost in the dark BG.

Hmmm.... straighten the horizon??

Since St. Francis is the main focus, I would also like to see the birds much better. The silhouette approach with the sharp edges from the poster and cut-out very nicely highlight the statue against all the vibrant greens. The 2 white swans must have been paid off to pose so nicely!

I like the posterization and cutout effects very much. The square format is good, and this is one of those times when centering the subject works well. Diane's suggestion of cropping from the bottom has merit, I think, but I'd crop less than half for two reasons. The dark green of the water could be bounded very nicely by the golden ratio, and I like the idea of a substantial amount of black underneath the statue and its support. If you do crop from the bottom and have enough canvas on the right, keeping the square format would give the swan on the right a bit more swimming room.

Although I wonder how it would look if all the birds at the top of the statue were visible, I don't know if that's vital. The fact that they're disappearing into the black of the background might help to tie things together. It might also cause a bit of tension by bringing that distant area into the same plane as the foreground, and that might be a good thing.

Hi Hazel, very cool concept and I like the treatment. I agree with comments about the birds fading into black. It would have been an option to just raise the camera so your perspective would have moved the birds down in front of the grass so they would be visible. I don't know what camera you use, but if you have live view it is very handy for this function. I often use it so I can hold the camera above me for perspective changes like that and also find it works well for getting a low shot (near the ground) without all the hassle of trying to see through the viewfinder.