Lunch Counter
24 February 2014 -- 55/365
Cranston, Rhode Island
There is a restaurant chain (Johnny Rockets) in New England that projects the look and feel of a 1950s era lunch counter. The only thing missing is an authentic soda fountain. The interior reminds me of the set of Happy Days, although the juke boxes are in each booth (similar to what most restaurants had in the '60s) instead of one large juke box in the corner. It's an interesting setting and, since they welcome photography, I took the opportunity to make my lunch-time visit my Photo a Day shot for today. To take in the entire scene, I used a 16mm lens which produced some interesting parallax, but I decided to leave the distortion in place instead of correcting it in PSE. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I think the parallax adds to the scene in this case.
Post processing started with a classic filter in Topaz B&W FX. I adjusted color sensitivity sliders, adaptive exposure, regions, contrast, boost black, and boost white. A levels adjustment was added in PSE.
The texture of the floor is really interesting. I like how nostalgic that looks, and the way the people are looking at the counter there. Very nice shot!
