[Leica] C&C solicited for show entry

[hlritter at bex.net (Howard Ritter)]

Hello All?

I'm planning to enter my first show ever, the annual Healing Arts show put 
on by and for the local medical community in March next year, open to 
entries from the graphic arts. I selected a photo I took at Pictured Rocks 
National Lakeshore of Lake Superior on the UP of Michigan on a short trip 
there last year. The subject is a wave breaking on a multilayered sandstone 
shorline. (OK, OK, I can hear your eyes rolling now. What new way is there 
to show a wave breaking on a shore? Well, I think this is one.) Because the 
purpose of the trip was not to go to Pictured Rocks or to take photographs, 
I wasn't expecting to encounter any subject that would benefit from FF, so 
the only camera I took was my Lumix GF1. Lesson learned (not for the first 
time). The GF1 is a great little camera, but the degree of the crop here 
really would have benefitted from the larger sensor and greater number of 
photosites of a FF camera.

The viewpoint is an observation platform about 300 feet above the water, at 
the top of a nearly vertical cliff, explaining the perspective. I have 
uploaded four photos to the Gallery 
(http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/Fotos/). One is the full frame, 
taken at 45mm (90 equiv) containing a good deal of foreground shrubbery. I 
started to crop down to clean the worst of this out, but as I worked, I 
realized that the picture works best (for me) as an almost abstract 
composition with the shore, the breaking wave, and the colors of the lake 
bottom forming a nicely proportioned and colorful array. I think this is an 
unusual perspective for this subject, and is the reason why I think it's 
worth showing. The other three are crops.

The first photo is the full frame. The second is the largest crop I could 
get that contained only a small amount of foreground clutter that I could PS 
out (some of which I've already done) and preserved all of the green water. 
The problem with the core crop is that I don't like the near-square 
proportions much?but I like all of the parts of the composition. The other 
two are crops in conventional print proportions, each using one of the full 
dimensions of the core crop. The 11x14 is the proportion I find most 
pleasing, but even though it occupies the full horizontal dimension of the 
core crop, it leaves out a lot of the beautiful green waters and some 
shoreline detail.  The 8x10 is about as near-square as I find pleasing to 
look at, and includes all the water, but its portrait orientation is at a 
right angle to the flow of the picture elements. But I don't think that's a 
deal-killer, and the 8x10 may be better in that it comes closer to 
conforming to the rule of thirds. And I like the off-center location of the 
most prominent part of the wave in the 8x10 crop, as well as the inclusion 
of more interesting texture and detail on the shore. Right now I favor the 
8x10.

I'd appreciate C&C, especially on what might look best framed and on a 
wall?the square core crop, the 8x10, or the 11x14. Or any other cropping and 
proportioning suggestions.

Thanks in advance.  Merry Christmas (and Happy Hanukkah) to all, and to all 
a good night!

?howard