My concept for today was to head to the village of Lonsdale and look for an interesting photo of something mill related. I was loosely thinking of mill housing, or potentially one of those interesting fire escapes on an old mill that more resembles an amusement park ride than it does an emergency exit. Driving past the old Ann and Hope complex, though, I spotted this wall art on one of the mill buildings that's still in use as office space. With less than four hours remaining in the summer of 2013 - the autumnal equinox is at 4:44 EDT this afternoon - I knew this artwork showing Canada Geese flying south for the winter would be the perfect seasonal transition photo. That it's painted on the side wall of an old mill just added to the attraction.
Post processing started with a simple pop filter in Topaz Adjust. I then adjusted adaptive exposure, regions, contrast, and strength. A levels adjustment was applied to the entire image. I then selected just the brown-toned wall and the ceder chips on the right side of the image. To that I applied a sepia photo filter and then reduced the saturation by about 50%. The original was too bright and modern, and it created a huge distraction. Toning it down significantly allowed it to blend into the painting much better and didn't compete for attention.
