Abandoned

Is it possible to take a photo that is nothing and make it into a photo worth printing? I think so.

Have a look at a photo I shot while out photographing a sunset.

First a little back ground story. Maureen and I drove to Sauble Beach which is on Lake Huron. Once I parked the truck on my way down to the beach I saw this scene. Not sure what I was going to do with it I set up my tripod and photographed the scene. Now to be honest I did not spend much time on this and in fact I just composed the building made sure the meter in my camera was properly exposed and I took the shot. I quickly reviewed the photo on the LCD on my camera and moved on.

A couple of days later I opened it in Photoshops Camera Raw and then imported the photo into photoshop untouched. What I had was a flat image that really had no interest..I decided that it needed to be rescued. So I closed out the original photo in photoshop and re opened the image in Camera Raw. In camera raw I changed it to black and white with no mods and imported it into photoshop. I then saved it as a file under a different name.

I then opened the original file again then I adjusted the Texture; Dehaze; and Clarity sliders to the right to really bring out the dramatic details of the clouds and the texture of the sand. I then imported the file into photo shop where the magic really happens.

The first image is lighter than the second. I put the second image on top of the first on a separate layer. On the top layer I removed the building allowing the lighter image from below to come through. That’s it simple.

But I am not done. First I leveled the image as it was on a slight list. Then I cropped it to a 5×7 aspect ratio. There is one area of the photo that is distracting. That is the bench. I removed that bench by cloning it out. I also cloned in some grass besides the building on the left. That really stood out so I had to do some burning to make sure it blended in. I did decide to keep the swing set on the right because I believe it leads a little interest in the photo.

Now I know some people would now call this a fake but I am trying to make this a nice photo not a historic photo. All in all I really liked how this photo turned out.  I would be interested in your comments.

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Thank you for reading this  journal.