Robert Knight  

Samual Stone by Robert Knight

October 2026 - Samual Stone

October 2026 - Robert Knight

Original

About the Image(s)

This is the statue of the Rev Samuel Stone in our local town of Hertford. He sailed to America in the 17th century and co-founded Hartford, Connecticut. I am taking more pictures of architectural subjects and trying to take a fine art approach to them. I have been looking at the pictures of Joel Tjintjelaar, Noel Baldewijns and Julia Anna Gospodarou and really like what they produce so I am on a steep learning curve. I decided to take this picture and see if I could make the statue stand out by converting to black and white, isolating various aspects of the statue and its surroundings and making local adjustments. The image is cropped, the cycle store and the litter have been removed and I applied mostly exposure adjustments to the various areas. All comments gratefully received.

3 comments posted

David Terao   David Terao
I like your conversion to B&W for this image. By lightening the statue, it stands out a lot more than in color. You did a great job removing the bicycles, too. In my mind, I see a picture of statue. The surroundings give it some context of location, but seem to overwhelm the statue. I would crop in even tighter. But, because you live here, why not go back and take a closer shot of the statue?   Posted: 10/01/2026 19:27:05
Cindy Lynch   Cindy Lynch
I like the monochrome version best and, like David, I think you did a good job removing the bike rack - good choice. I feel like the statue is lost in the frame with so much of the surrounding area that doesn't add anything to your story and lessens the impact of the statue which is clearly your intent to focus upon. It looks like if you step to the left you can get the statue with a background of trees which would be less distracting. I would zoom in closer to the statue too.   Posted: 10/03/2026 14:09:39
Paul Halphen   Paul Halphen
Hi, Robert,
You did a great job of removing the bike rack. And, the conversion to black and white seems the right way to go. I do agree with the suggestions from Cindy and David on getting a bit closer, and possibly at a bit different angle.
I looked at Julia Anna Gospodarou's work on the web, and was impressed with her ability to showcase only what really matters in her photos, and make everything else "disappear". In many cases, she clearly did it with postprocessing. Looking at what you have done with this image so far, I'd say take another look at some of her cityscapes and architecture images. See if you can apply some more of her exaggerated editing to this photo, and I bet it will look even better.   Posted: 10/08/2026 01:00:52

 

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