My next stop was the sixth ward—which is just a little north and west of downtown Houston. I headed down Washington Avenue and various side streets looking for some old, interesting buildings. After about ten minutes, I found this old restaurant—Alice’s Café. I remember that some of my co-workers used to go here for lunches back in the late 70s, but I do not think that I had ever eaten at Alice’s.
As I was assessing the scene, I knew that I had a washed-out sky to deal with. I tried a few close-up shots of the building, but, in all honesty, they lacked the impact that the whole building had. So, I decided that I would shoot the whole building and apply a grunge look to the image in post-processing. I felt that the washed out sky would then become part of the overall look that I was using for the photo. I wanted the photo to have surreal look that would hopefully add to its aged and weathered appearance.
Enjoy.
Camera settings: Nikon D3, Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8 at 70mm with a polarizing filter attached, shot at ISO 200, f/11 and 1/90th of a second on a tripod.
Post Processing:
Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast, clarity.
Photoshop—ran nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast filter on the buildings and trees to add contrast to shadows, mid-tones and highlights and then sharpened buildings and tree about 20-30% more than normal using the high-pass filter in hard light mode, and increased the saturation of red, greens, cyan and blues.
Cool old place. I would like to have seen this during it's hay day. I like your post processing treatment.
ReplyDeleteAnne
I like your treatment here. Your perspective shows how the building is in poor condition and it gives you an idea of what it once was. Your post processing shows a lot of the building's details which is important to showing its state of disrepair. I can see what you were trying to do with the sky but I think that the no detail in the sky is working against your image. Nicely done.
ReplyDeleteThe Professor
Nice shot Patrick!
ReplyDeleteI like the way you used the trees as a framing device, especially on the left hand side of the photo. Your post-processing adds a lot of interest to the scene!
Well done!
Barry
This image has impact. There is a lot of questions that come to mind as you look at it.
ReplyDeleteDebbie