Old Mining towns or ghost towns

I was hoping that someone would be able to suggest some simple information to me. This photo seems like it is busy with old mining equipment, shack, and ruins of stairs. I recently visited an old mining town, there was one area that had three objects in a rule of thirds or a simple foreground middle and back ground. I was wondering as long as this rule is followed would it end up being too much for the frame?
my example, this photo has not been edited in any way.
( some of the original building have been moved to a location for the museum so the stairs are remnants from one of the buildings.)



any help is so appreciated that when I make the trip again I can get a do over. Thank you!

I think you need to pick a focal point, it is definitely too busy. I think I would crop out most of the foreground, perhaps even the small building to the left (which has potential in itself in another shot). Looks like the whole site has alot of potential, hit these subjects seperately from different angles/perspective and you'll have allot to work with. looks like a very interesting spot.

Thank you so much for your imput.. I did manage to get each one in their own setting.
I was just curious if the three could play a roll together, and if so was there a better route for composition.
I didn’t much care for the turn out since they seem so spaced apart and busy. but sometimes a beginner can be their own worst critic.

I took the liberty of cropping it to what I think would show it better. Hope you don't mind, myst.

View attachment 2250

Looking at your the other shots, it looks like a great spot to do some HDR, the tones are bland, but all that old rusty equipement might really come to life in HDR.

You have gotten good advice. Jack's cropping makes a big improvement in the shot. But it is still too busy. One of the basic rules of composition is to keep it simple. Too many subjects in one shot only makes for a busy and uninteresting picture. You have a lot of different subjects in one shot when each of them deserve attention in their own right. I've attached a link to a great article by Jodie Coston on composition that has been a help to me and I'm sure will help you learn how to get great pictures from a location like this.

Jodie Coston: Lesson 1 - MorgueFile

Hope this helps.

cnyram said:

Looking at your the other shots, it looks like a great spot to do some HDR, the tones are bland, but all that old rusty equipement might really come to life in HDR.

Click to expand...

I quite agree on this. I've looked at the other shots in the gallery and found that there were good but all seemed a little dull. I downloaded one and by just working with contrast and saturation it became alive.

I don't know what program you are using to post process your pictures, but you might want to invest serious time in learning to use it fully.

I don’t have any software I just use the Google Picnik and Picasa. as for the few mining town pictures that I did put on here I don’t recall doing anything to them except changing the size. all my edited stuff is from those two applications from the internet. I have used the HDR in Picnik but I don’t really like the turn out since there is no real control of what you can do. I would love to learn the software from all elements of photography, I am just slow going at this process. I tried Photoshop Elements 7 but I was so confused.
@ FotoJack, I do like the crop and Thank you for that I will be going in and cropping mine, to me it almost seemed that the crop with the steps lead you to the carts if you look at it right. Thank you all for all the input and I do believe that I will for sure be enrolling in a software course real soon.

There are alot of HDR programs with free trials available . I've tried Dynamic Photo HDR and Photomatix. Dynamic is easy to use and you can experiment with a singal shot in HDR simulator mode. Here's a link

Dynamic Photo-HDR, high dynamic range software

Adam, it will payoff to take the time it takes to learn the photo editing programs available. If you only have elements, it's fine, but first try to get free tutorials on the web on how to use it to it's max. After mastering it, go with a better program. I wouldn't suggest you to start with HDR since if you don't know how it works and what it can do, you'll just be clicking to get "special effects".
Photography is not so simple as point and shoot. There are a lot of factors involved in transfering what we see to a final image.
So take your time and enjoy, every day you learn, you'll get better.

OK so I took a shot at the Picnik version again read what the dials are in detail this time no skimming and this I think is my most favorite from the entire bunch I tried in HDR. The Reason is because it brought forth the tiny bit of blue sky that was there and the snow is illuminated.
This was an air-conditioned car that was left behind long after the rails were taken out from underneath it, for those in the Utah area and are interested in Ophir the living ghost town. (more information listed in the Utah Ghost Towns guide by Stephan L. Carr)