I discovered this building while walking to work in Philadelphia. The early morning light was being reflected onto the face of this building. What really caught my eye was the old weathered doors and the red brick. I have no clue was this building once was. The pain on the wall was very faded and I'm sure it changed owners a few times. The cobblestones leading to the door were also interesting. The image was processed using GIMP and Corel Painter Essentials. I hope you enjoy the image.
I like shooting odd angles and the buildings in Center City Philadelphia give you plenty of opportunity. I was also looking at combining several different elements. I used GIMP to brighten the reds of the awnings. I also increased color saturation, and brightness and contrast. Added a black to transarent gradient to the bottom and extending upwards.
As I was shooting some shots of a natural spillway from a lake I spotted a red leaf that somehow managed to stay where it was. The sun was above and to camera left. It was partly cloudy and when the sun came out it lit this leaf up. It looked so calm that it wasn't even moving.
I try my best to not worry about the camera settings when I shoot. I try to focus my attention on the entire image. I'll often shift the camera around several times before snapping an image. This one of about 50 shots. I played with exposure compensation and prefer to have the image slightly on the dark side so as not to blow out the details of any lighter areas. I also shoot with max color saturation and contrast.
This was shot using a GoPro sport camera. I love the wide angle lens on this small compact camera. I used Gimp to cleanup the image and to bring out the colors in the sky. I masked out the 'LOVE' using the free-select tool and included the lower half of the image in the selection. I inverted the selection so that I'd be working on the building and the sky only. I used levels to bring out the clouds and the sky. Once I had them they way I wanted, I inverted the selection and used the hue and saturation to bring out the red in the sign. I did a selection of the water fountain and colorized it with a shade of green and lightened it slightly to make it more dramatic. Lastly I selected an arc near the bottom and used a gradient to give it that dark to light transition.
This shot is of Willowgrove road looking west. This stretch of road is straight and long. I took several exposures in both color and black and white. I thought that black and white was better suited for this image. I had to get out of the road a couple of times because of traffic before capturing a shot with an empty road. I enhanced the image using GIMP. this is the finished product.
This is a composite of 2 photos I took. The background is from a rusty plow blade on my farm. The picture of the horse was added over the plow layer(base image). I used GIMP program to do the work. I used the smudge tool to give the strands of hair the windblown look. I'll included the original files in another blog entry. I was happy with the way this image turned out. I'm considering printing a copy and taking it to the farm owners where I captured the picture of the horse.
