A co-worker mentioned that a load of railroad ties and new gravel was unloaded at a nearby railroad track. I took several shots and really disliked the browns and greens in the photo so thought I'd try B&W as the textures and diagonal lines are what what makes the shot rather than the colors.
PP in Gimp
Curves
Desaturate
Clone away some bird droppings from the rails
Burned a lot of the gravel as it had highlights
Resize
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Post challenge comments always welcome. At a score of 4.5 and 4% finish this has to be considered a poor photo. Problem is that I still like it and fail to see why it scored so low. Such is life, although it is kind of hard to improve without knowing what you are doing wrong.
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The composition is almost intriguing, but the lack of overall contrast drags it down. There is nothing on the white end of the spectrum IMO. This leaves the overall photo flat. The flip side is there is not enough texture in your main subject, the foreground ties. I think this type of photo needs a few of CS3 B and W adjustment layers to get the most out of it. It's actually a fairly interesting shot IMO, it grew on me. I would have given this version a 5, as it's not a bad photograph, just needs a more practiced conversion. Keep working on it. I love BW, and I've been spending a lot of time on it the last few months.
I'd have to say that black and white is a good choice for this subject. Desaturation worked okay here but using the channel mixer often gets far better results. (In GIMP: Filters -> Colors - Channel Mixer...)
I'd agree with colorcarnival in taking a different perspective. Maybe laying on the tracks themselves (if they aren't in use) might be an approach. Rails can convey motion and can conjure up thoughts of travel. Use the rails to take us somewhere.
You also mention you had highlights in the gravel you didn't care for. Shooting from the other side would have made the scene have easier lighting to shoot.
First, the railroad tracks just cut across your picture. To intrigue the viewer, maybe show the tracks leading to somewhere, maybe into the background of your picture.
Second, there's not much variation in the lighting so the whole picture looks flat. Both items compete for the viewers' attention. I like to think of it as find one focual point to grab the viewer's eye and then use other secondary items to lead the viewer around other parts of the photo.
So for this picture, maybe, try some different viewpoints and perspectives and then compare and see if anything grabs you. Hope this helps a bit.
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