Cades Cove churchyard

[SlipJigPiper]

For those who aren't familiar, Cades Cove is in the Smoky Mts of Tennessee. I thought this slightly Gaussian shot evoked the sleepiness and peacefulness of the region. Its one of my earlier attempts at post-processing a digital image. Your thoughts on how I could improve on composition/saturation/etc would be welcomed.

[tirediron]

Hmmm... first off, while I understand your intent with the gaussian blur, I don't like it in this application; I get the impression that the focus was missed.

I like the composition, but I think it might have been even stronger if you'd moved a little to camera left and created diagonal lines of headstones leading to the church. I'd also suggest a slight levels/curves tweak to brighten up the dark areas just a bit.

This image would also benefit form a slight perspective correction. Overall though, it's a nice image, but how the heck do you resolve "Cove" in the mountains????

[tomorrowstreasures]

I agree with TI.

[Gem]

^^^ What they said =)

[SlipJigPiper]

Good points! Thanks. I gotta keep thinking "composition" more than I have.
I'll look into some dodging of the darker areas and dropping the blur effect.

[Iguanasan]

I agree with the other comments but I want to add that this is one of those shots when I think the rule of thirds would have helped a lot in the composition. The church should be at one of the intersections (upper left or upper right) and I would make the bottom third of the image the graveyard. Just my