Reflections

Normally a title like 'Reflections' would have me off on my hobby horse, writing about life in days gone by, and the like.  But I'm keeping it vanilla today.

There's always a heated debate on the FB groups any time someone mentions image manipulation.  Of course these days with Photoshop it is very easy to manipulate an image, as we well know.  Some people are firmly of the view that the photograph should represent 'what was there, then'.  Others are more relaxed and say once the image is acquired in the camera, anything goes.  To be honest I find all those discussions a bit boring.  If someone wants to change an image in a particular way, then let them.  I don't see the point in trying to make some sort of 'rule' that restricts creativity.

So here's a photograph for you, snapped on my jaunt around the back roads of Castleroe the other day.  Actually, two photographs for you, to be precise.  A bit like in the episode with Father Ted and Chris the sheep, one photograph is flipped horizontally.  (As a former mathematician I am appalled at what I have just written - what I meant to write was that one photograph has undergone a reflection about the left hand edge).  Whatever - you get my drift.

This way?

Or this way

The question is, does the photograph work better one way or the other?   The top photograph is the 'correct' way - i.e., it shows a representation of the actual scene.  The eye is led into the photograph from right to left.  But naturally we (well, in this part of the world anyway) read from left to right, so perhaps the second photograph works better.  

Better photographers than me have flipped the orientation of photographs to improve the final image.  In this example above I do prefer the second image. What do you think?