I went to the P&W Railroad Depot in Woonsocket this morning. The plan was to photograph a small statue in front of the Depot that marks the location where Richard Gere starred in a movie filmed in Blackstone Valley. While walking back to my car, though, I spotted this gentleman pushing a small stroller overflowing with bags of aluminum cans. Recycling these cans is a way to pickup some cash, and I'll occasionally see someone pushing shopping carts full of them in urban areas. In this case, it wasn't just my subject that caught my attention. It was his location on the hill in front of a building that had clearly seen better days. The peeling paint and the broken window set the mood for the area and could just as easily be a subject unto themselves.
Post processing started with a classic filter in Topaz B&W FX. I adjusted color sensitivity sliders, adaptive exposure, regions, boost black, boost white, and contrast. A levels adjustment was added in PSE.
