*le sigh* damn photography policies....

When the rights of the photographers are so weakly guarded, why can someone "own" a visual space?? meh. whatever.

I love the dappling of the sun on the stone floor. If it were my photo, I might consider cropping it in a little on the right and the top to clean up the edges. At the moment they seem a little...cluttered and distracting.But only a smidge. Otherwise your placement of the doorway, the rock in the lower right...I like that composition a lot.

--
'Yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible.'

~John Milton; Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 62~

_{...just an earth-bound misfit, i}

Nice shot. I agree with Carissa's suggestions - it would make the doorway more of a focal point. I also like how you took the photo at a slight angle rather than a straight on shot of the doorway. I think it gave the image a bit more depth.

The floor is pretty cool; is it laid with tiles or stones?

Thanks JB. I could've played with this picture quite a bit but since I wasn't going to put up a print version I just posted what came out of the camera. *shrug* Yea, I'm lazy like that.

As for the angle that was mostly to frame the Taihu stone in the doorway while trying to keep the other elements balanced. Trying to dig up the name of the type of stone I found a nice picture of the opposite side of the same stone by G'cubed on flickr - [link]

There is a great wealth of information about the Taihu stones history and meaning. The Half a Cloud stone is a great example. [link]

The floor in this room was made from a combination of stones and tiles if I recall correctly. I believe the thin straight and curving lines dividing the pattern were gray tile and then each space was filled with individually placed stones to form the textured, directional feel to the floor.