No doubt world wonder Taj is magnificient and beautiful, recently I visited Agra and tried to portrait Taj from different angles and perspective, this image is one of the kind,  taken from a hotel top where I stayed in the evening hours when the image is lit from the sides. Like to know from the senior critiques the lacunae in composition, technique, lighting etc.

Shot with Nikon d810, 70-200 lens at focal lenght 140mm, 1/250, f13, ISO64,

Hi Ramamurthi and thank you for sharing thus fine image - When i look on an image for the first time in selection I ask myself two questions - One do I see a published image - The second question can I see any major faults.

Pure and simple lets try an get some answers to those two questions - First lets look at Composition and lighting - Lighting is fine in my view composition I might have gone for a tighter crop.

The main thing that I believe is spoiling the overall look is the large tree bottom left that is out of focus - Ok it could be put right with Fill / Content Aware with a follow up with clone and healing tools.

But now lets look at the second question would that make it a published image?? Maybe not I just fel it's on the wrong side of publication. Ok What about making it a monochrom would that work. I've tried that I do think it looks better but just falls short in my view - It's a great looking building that many other photographers had done wonderful images before - A good attempt..

mono

Thats a great gesture Daniel , thanks , monochrome looks better than other as you said, and that too its a early evening image with contrasty light , so as you said monchrome does a better job, (but I dont know the basics of monochrome conversion, I'll try to learn) , thanks once again for constructive critque,

Regarding out of focus foliage it was too bright I burnt it but it still spoils as you said, I'll go for content aware fill, thanks,

With regards,

Dr Palaniraman

Dr. Palaniraman,

Thank you for participating in the Critique section.  It's always interesting to see how each of us sees something different in a photograph.  I did not even notice the un-focused tree at the bottom left that Daniel pointed out.  What I noticed was a slight tilt to the right similar to the other Taj Mahal photo you posted recently.  The building is a bit lower on the right side.  Not much - but for such a subject I think precision is important.  You can check if a subject is level horizontally and if verticals are straight with Photoshop's 'View>New Guide'.  Click and drag the guide to what you want to measure.

To correct the tilt, the 'Perspective Crop' option in the Crop tool works well - just pull the top right 'handle' down, or the bottom left one up a little.

  While in Photoshop, there's one more detail to check.  If you open the Ruler tool with 'View>Rulers', and then right-click inside the scale that appears at the top and left of the image and change the scale to 'Percentage', you'll see that the center of the Taj Mahal is on the 52% line.  For the final perfection, a slight crop from the left of the image will put it precisely on the 50% mark.   Symmetry has a subtle effect on a photograph, giving the subject more dignity and importance.  It's something that viewers may not even be aware of, but with the wonderful tools we have for photo editing, we can fine-tune the  balance of the composition for that final  perfection.

. . . . Steven, senior critic

Thanks dear Steven for the guidance!