Hi Mark,
When I come online to work on the Image Doctor files I am presented with a thumbnail of each image, and the thumbnail of your photograph really captured my attention.
At first glance it did look like the moon shining through a tree and like good imagery can, it reminded me of looking up at the moon through the trees of Hagley Park in Christchurch whenever I used to cycle through there at night (a long time ago).
Being able to trigger memories or just get someone’s imagination going is a good thing, particularly if you are an illustrative type photographer, so take this on as a good thing.
Now… the disappointment came in discovering that I was looking at a street lamp. Rather than writing this image off though, I think it would be better to just make a few adjustments to the lamp itself so that viewers assume it is the moon.
Start by using the Spot Healing tool to get rid of that bright highlight on the lower left of the lamp. The next thing I would do is use a paintbrush to paint out the dark base of the lamp with the same bright glow of the rest of the lamp. To do this, use the smallest of the brush options and then sample the colour (holding the ALT or OPTION key turns the brush into a colour picker); then just paint over the black areas of the picture.
Try cropping the image as in the example below and I think you will start to get a stronger feel from this image.
Cheers for now, Anthony.
Image Doctor's edited version
