Clare:
A) WRT color vs B&W, the number of commenters (excluding the OP) with a clear preference for color vs B&W seems to be:
B&W: 3 - Inkz, Dear John, Tom
Color: 1 - Clare
As you said, this is mostly a matter of preference / opinion, although it does seem to be strongly (3:1) against color.
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B) WRT your comment, "...the FG trees diverge in sharpness from the next objects ...", for the life of me, I don't understand where this comment came from, and why you brought it up in a negative sense.
I did a thorough search of the entire thread, and the only comment (until yours) about trees or sharpness was one by me, and it couldn't have been more complimentary to the OP:
"...The large dark masses (aka, trees ;-) ) on either side of the image is another strong point of the composition. They nicely (unobtrusively, appropriately) focus the viewer's gaze right onto the RR tracks with then takes the viewer right to the vanishing point at infinity. ...
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C) WRT your comment, "...We have started to get so technical about the tiniest details that I think it can be discouraging, so nit pickish, ...,
I presume you are concerned about my suggestion that he correct the keystone distortion and level the horizon. If you grant that someone (me) wants an image to look static, almost architectural, then I think that no good photographer would EVER accept errors in these quantities of a degree or two. If this is the goal, angular errors of this amount would never be considered "tiny details". Such an error would instantly make even an otherwise perfect image look amateurish - they would imply that the photographer either didn't notice or didn't care about correcting something so obvious. Of course, if one's artistic goal is to impart some dynamism or tension in an image, then some keystone distortion or a tilted horizon might be a wonderful contributor to the overall effect, but that's not what my suggestion for an alternative treatment is about.
I suspect you didn't distinguish between these two cases (intentionally static vs intentionally dynamic), and felt this was nitpicking because you simply didn't like my goal (intentionally static) and ignored it.
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D) WRT your comment, "...Dissecting it and showing it off at its worst, however, even for instructional purposes, is going too far. ...",
once again, I'm astonished at how you could construe my analysis of the OP's image as being negative in ANY way. May I remind everyone that I made the following comments about it:
"IMHO, a strong point of this image is the geometry of converging lines. The large dark masses (aka, trees ;-) ) on either side of the image is another strong point of the composition. They nicely (unobtrusively, appropriately) focus the viewer's gaze right onto the RR tracks with then takes the viewer right to the vanishing point at infinity. "
"I absolutely love the mist that softens objects in the distance."
"...here's an annotated version to point out the absolutely wonderful geometry and composition of this image. "
Those were all strong positive comments. Would you please point out exactly where I make a negative comment? The closest I can find is that I said that I personally would prefer a different rendition of the image (ie, static, B&W) and then went about describing how I would obtain this.
As in my response (C), above, once again, I suspect that you so dislike my static, simplified, B&W version that you let your own personal preferences override what I actually said, and instead, interpreted my display of a possible alternative as "showing it off at its worst".
Perhaps you thought the version I annotated with arrows and highlighted the the nearest trees.was negatively dissecting the OP's image. If you did, you must not have read the accompanying text where I made my strongly positive comment (quoted above) about the geometry of the converging ines and the way the trees nicely focus the viewer's attention. Again, for the life of me, I don't see how I could have been more positive in my comments. All I did was suggest an alternate treatment and then explain a bit of my thought processes in getting to that point.
Your comments make me wonder if you actually read what I wrote.
Tom