How I did it - Here's an image I shot last October on a visit to New England. We tried to stop at as many lighthouses as we could because lighthouses always fascinated me and we don't see very many of them in Colorado. This is an image of the stairwell in a Maine lighthouse that I thought was quite interesting. The brick seem to blend in well with the perforations in the middle circular staircase and provided a contrasting pattern that I enjoyed. Unfortunately, the window serves as a hotspot in this particular image and is distracting for me, but there's nothing I could do about it. I tried to tone it down as much as I could without it becoming even more of a distraction.

COMMENTS:
 

Joseph Malkary	Nice image. Well seen. Colors appear somewhat flat. I wonder if more contrast would perk things up.
Allen Gannaway	I believe this is the lighthouse used on my screen saver. You might tone down the window a little.
Bill Provost	For me this picture causes some confusion. I am not sure what the theme of the picture is. It could be shapes of the stair openings and the spiral of the stair case or the pattern of the bricks. Perhaps a neutral density or polarizer filter would have given more definition to it. I agree with you that the lower window is blown out. The upper window is also very bright. Maybe the filters could have helped this. Also shifting the pole from the center of the stairs to one side or the other might have given more of a 1/3rd aspect to the photo.
Ron Alexander	Good "eye" to detect the photo possibilities of the interplay between brick and steel. The window, and the highlighted brick above it, are distracting. If I could not control it with "highlights and shadows" or curves I might have selected it (a regular rectangle) and altered the exposure.
Lynne Royce	You're right on all accounts. The brick and perforations in the circular staircase provide a great contrasting pattern. You're also right in that the window is a hotspot but it's a lighthouse. How did the flip side look, shooting from top of lighthouse down to the bottom of staircase?
Don von Wolffradt	I agree, the window is a hotspot and a distraction. However, if somebody were on the steps, that would easily have overpowered the distraction.

Member Bio

Al Swanson - Biography   I was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and attended the University of Minnesota. Upon graduation I entered the Air Force and served as a transportation and logistics officer until my retirement as a colonel in 1993. I then went to work for a Denver-based transportation organization and became president of their van line division, before leaving that enterprise after 13 more years. I am now happily semi-retired in Colorado Springs and enjoying the opportunity to photograph landscapes in places where most people come to visit for only two weeks the year at best. I am married to my wife of 41 years and have two sons, both living in Colorado, and each giving me two grandchildren (two boys and two girls). .