Architecture seems to be the theme for life right now. My get pushed challenge this week by Marelize is to photograph architecture, and the theme for my camera club's November competition is historical architecture, defined as a man-made structure at least 100 years old. So, Harper's Ferry it was this weekend.
St. Peter's was built in 1833 and renovated in 1896. I believe that fits the bill. Architecture is NOT my passion, and I do not think I have an eye for it at all. Add to that the fact that the light was not at all cooperative, and my shot was completely flat. This photo was taken around noon, or shortly thereafter. By sunset, the sky was completely cloudy. So driving home yesterday, I was at a loss as to what to do with this little piece of history to give it some kind of umph. Finally came to the conclusion that monochrome was the only way to go.
I have processed either this shot or one of the similar shots, many times back and forth between all the post processing programs I have. This is the one that, to my eye, seems to be the one. To get it to this stage, I first did the basic adjustments thru LR, then ran it thru Define to get all the grain out. From there, it went into PS to do spot removal and, for the first time ever, perspective correction (to get rid of that small skew a tall building gets when captured from this angle). After that, I had to remove a bunch of shiny white spots off the roof as well as a cord of some sort that stretched from the base of the building all the way up to the top of the cross on the steeple. I also got rid of a tree that stuck out of the steeple about halfway up on the right side of the photo. From there, I took it into Silver Efex and processed it 4 different ways before deciding that this was the finish I wanted. One more detour over to Color Efex to add some Sunshine warmth, and this is the end result.
Does this dress make my a$$ look fat? Oops, I mean, does this photo LOOK like it's over processed? :-)
(On a side note, I saw a t-shirt in Harper's Ferry that said "Does this bike make my a$$ look fast?" I wanted that shirt so bad!!! Sadly, I didn't like the style of it at all...)
And just for kicks, here is the original:
http://365project.org/shesnapped/others/2015-10-24
