A few nights ago I have been fiddling around with my Planar 50mm f/1.4 trying to practice night exposures. Not a very easy task with no tripod +3 degrees Celsius, so some motion blur could be possible :-)
One of the pics I shot is the one below, but I can't decide which version I like better. Or should I chuck this altogether and restart?
Colour, as Mike suggested, is better but it still isn't good. Re-shoot with better focus / less movement and try to reduce the exposure of those highlights so that they don't look overexposed.
The light is inviting my attention towards it but there I see overexposed and blurred details, which I find unappealing.
First, to me, the opened door and exterior appear to be out of focus, or let's say soft - I believe the illuminated door should be the focal point?
Second, the white area on the exterior wall, imo, is distracting - this effect is magnified in the BW version (as is the blocked area at the base of the buttress across the street).
Third, I think the non-illuminated door (and area to the left) competes for attention with the opened door in the BW version whereas it compliments the same door in the color version.
Normally I tend to prefer BW since I think a really good BW image is more difficult to achieve than color - I know most others probably do not agree - but in this case, I prefer the color version.
Overall, I agree with naypay - there might be a better angle waiting to be discovered
