Emil, it's a fascinating bit of history, and a well-shot photograph. The angle is perfect, showing the inviting stairs with the amazing clouds above.

It seems to me that there is a great deal going on in this image, so much that I have a hard time deciding what to focus on. With that in mind, I played with the lighting a bit to draw attention primarily to the stairs and sky. Your thoughts?

  Posted: 10/05/2025 00:16:16

Pete

You are right about the busy scene, darkening the elements on each side of the stairs is a good idea.

Thanks

Emil   Posted: 10/10/2025 16:25:36

Emil, I like how you captured this image and the processing you did to the sky. To me what was interesting in the image is how the clouds form an arch that mimics the stone walls in the foreground. I could see myself setting up the camera as you did. As Pete mentioned in his comments, my eye does not follow up the stair to the tree in the center and the clouds which were I think you were guiding to viewer. Similar to Pete, I tried to create more contrasting areas in the image by darkening the vegetation and lightening the architecture in image. I further lightened the stairs to guide the viewer toward the tree in the center. I also had a vignette to further focus the viewer's attention.   Posted: 10/13/2025 22:07:44

Emil - great image and full of possibilities to edit to achieve different results. Considering your edit I assume you wanted to draw attention to the sky. Along these lines I edited the image to create more contrast mainly by darkening features other than the skies, cropped the image to create more symmetry and dodged and burned parts of the stairs to lead the eyes to the skies. Had fun working on the picture.

Cheers

Mike   Posted: 10/22/2025 18:51:45