Castle of Azulhoc

[Mouse]

I don't think you really need something in each corner - not if your really scratching around for something to add.

What might help is if you can bear to reduce the size of the shield. Its colours are dominating the whole map - an effect that would be greatly reduced if you reduced its size quite a lot. I might actually move it across to the opposite corner, move the plan down to be in the middle of that side, and actually shunt the whole castle a fraction to the right, so that the focus isn't bang in the middle.

Composition is a really tricky thing to get right, but where photographers tend to want the focal point right in the centre, its actually quite uncomfortable in an artistic composition, which is better divided into thirds or fifths on a subliminal level - hence the tendency for the horizon in most landscape paintings to be one third or two fifths from the top of the painting (or from the bottom). If you arrange all the extras in a sort of 2/5 column down the left side and shunt the castle to be central to the remaining 3/5... or even use sevenths - 2/7 and 5/7, then plop a signature or copyright thing in the bottom right hand corner it might help.

All of this is just me babbling away - just ideas, that's all

[Tenia]

Thank you all for your comments.
JO : Yes, I will test a bigger title.
Mouse : These aren't babblings but excellent advices (btw : Welcome back!), I thought the castle and the cast shadows were sufficiently on the right but... I will definitively shrink the coat of arms, about moving it on the left side (alignment and render with the insets) and shunting the castle (and so cutting part of the shadows on the right) I'm wondering... testing time now.

[Mouse]

Thanks, Tenia

I would never follow my own instructions to the letter, but maybe only consider them. I did think about the shadow thing long after I made that comment, and didn't get as far as an actual solution. Maybe you will come up with a completely different arrangement that's much better anyway

[- JO -]

Composition is a really tricky thing to get right, but where photographers tend to want the focal point right in the centre, its actually quite uncomfortable in an artistic composition, which is better divided into thirds or fifths on a subliminal level

Actually, photographers tends to use the golden numbers too for their composition...

[Blaidd Drwg]

Balance thingy aside, this is really very beautiful!
Small nitpick: is the motto correct? It looks like there's a space in "Jamais" --> "Ja mais".

[Mouse]

Actually, photographers tends to use the golden numbers too for their composition...

Maybe some of them do, but at all the Photographic Society talks I've been to the main speaker is always on about 'filling the shot', and getting the focus right in the centre of the shot'.

Mind you, things might have changed since then. It was a few years ago now

[- JO -]

I don’t know about those photographic societies, but as taking picture is a part of my job, I was thaught to put the strong spots of the picture in one of the 4 « strong points » defined by the golden numbers because it’s supposed to be the first points where the human eyes goes when looking at a picture... (damn language... it’s so hard to be precise in English for me...)

[Mouse]

Well its great to hear that things have definitely changed

I always try to put things at the intersection of the thirds, fifths, sevenths or ninths - always an odd number.

[Tenia]

Many thanks Blaidd ! It is intended (maybe not appropriate ?), it is an old French form, from ja : already, now from Latin iam and mais or mes, negation.
I tried to shunt the castle to the right but the cutted shadows gave a badly framed look, so I just expanded the title a bit, shrank the coat of arms and added a stamped signature on the bottom right, hope it is enough...

[Mouse]

I can only speak for myself here, but to me it looks just about right