Cuxham, Oxfordshire

At least you had somewhere to shelter when the rain hit.

No shelter required. Where I was yesterday (Gaydon and Oxfordshire) there was no rain after 09:00 - this was taken at 17:45. In fact most of the day there was 'dream' photographic lighting with (genuine) Shepperton skies. Unfortunately until late afternoon I wasn't anywhere I could take advantage of it.

On the way home I made a special detour to get this shot. Strangely, although I know the Watlington area, I'd never come across Cuxham, and only got wind of it last week when a follower on Flickr published a near-identical shot. His though was taken in May, and comparing like-with-like it's greener and nicer now in July. Both he and I though had magnum opuses in removing the same telegraph pole and spider's web of cables ruining that genuine sky.

No doubt that sky will now be filched and reappear in subsequent creations.
It's nice to see you keeping realistic colours.

No, because there's too little of it to be used elsewhere. In Shepperton sky pictures (I have a folder of them which is constantly being added to) the sky needs to occupy at least 75% of the frame.

Well since we value realism and authenticity so highly, perhaps I should have stayed with the original version:

Hi Howard

I prefer the original but then you know I am Mr As Is! to me the wires etc are a sign of human habitation

Chacun a son gout. I take what looks to me beautiful, and those wires etc. are anything but, and deface and spoil the beauty of their surroundings.

I agree with John: the original is much better.
(than the version that was here before being replaced)

The problem with your edited version is that you've highlighted the end wall on the left, making it stand out too much (which is why Roy wanted to crop it off), whilst giving less prominence to the phone box. But you were right to add a little extra on the righthand edge.

I like having the wires and telegraph poles there.
Why do you consider them an eyesore and the phone box not?

1. You can NOT be serious

2. I didn't highlight the wall. The sun, which was shining directly on it, had come out more when the second shot was taken. But I accept that it was slightly distracting and have darkened it.

3. One does not "consider" anything to be beautiful, ugly or an eyesore. Considering is a deliberate and conscious act whereas beauty or ugliness is perceived - felt - intuitively. Hence my inability, however much they offend my aesthetic sense, to explain in rational terms why cables, telegraph poles and aerials are eyesores, and why traditional telephone boxes are not. But it can be understood insofar as the latter were designed by Giles Gilbert Scott on classical lines, whereas the electrical services were installed with no consideration whatever about their appearance.

Also, red telephone boxes can add a splash of warm colour where needed, but I removed the yellow defibrillator from inside this one.

defibrillators Cables etc are there and they are part of everyday experience and we need to recognise that. Since I lost the sight in one eye last Christmas I appreciate the natural and not so natural beauty around me. That is not to say I don't appreciate your pictures as I do, but I wonder what I am missing out on.

It could be I who's missing out on something. I'm a conventional pictorial and not a documentary photographer, and everyday experience isn't my subject. No artist painting this or a similar scene would include the things which I've removed.

The replacement looks good now that the distracting wall has been darkened.
But I'm puzzled by the straight dark line between the path and the phone box.
Is that the shadow of a telegraph pole?

You wouldn't like this one then.

Yes, it does appear to be. The 'offending' telegraph pole can be seen here: www.ipernity.com/doc/isisbridge/45901658. It's just inches from where I was standing.

You appear to have gone there specially and spent some time there (though waiting so long for the bus back, more than you intended), while I (strangely, having been through and to Watlington many times over the years) had, until last Friday, had never even heard of Cuxham.

Although unsettling and far from beautiful, that's actually rather good, and should be titled "Spider man".

Raise the contrast by 15-20% and it'll be better still.

Ah, I'd forgotten I had that one (taken on a mobile, I think).
So shouldn't you be cloning out the pole shadow???

Picture replaced. I've lightened the pole shadow to make it less obvious and that I think is sufficient. Other minor improvements also made.

[We've discussed this before but] the latest smartphones with 3 or even 4 cameras, as opposed to just the one in my ancient iPhone 8, produce better image quality than the compact or bridge cameras of a generation ago, but nevertheless aren't entirely suitable for serious photography.

Serious photography? I think some people get too serious about it sometimes.

But you make a good point in your earlier comment, where you say that beauty and ugliness are things that are felt rather than considered. A great deal of modern architecture is so ugly that it wounds the soul, but the architects consider their creations to be beautiful because they follow the rules they have learnt about what makes something beautiful (e.g. having the windows in a certain configuration). They are considering rather than feeling.