December 2017 - THIS week's PICTURE
Barn in Crozet VA: photo by Malcolm Aslett
| More or less straightfoward image built up from a few photos of the building, a series of layers of sky, and three or four of the telegraph pole. In normal circumstances the telegraph pole top bends far too much into the picture and there is the task of straightening it (if you want to go that path) and faffing with the wires to make them appear somewhat straight. The series below shows screen shots of some of the stages of development. One final change was to remove the dark hills from the left background as they intruded too much onto the line of the roof. They were removed and the clouds lowered - though now they look like mountains. I can live with that. | |
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| The top right of the photo doesn't exist at this point. The cloud images need adjusting as some are more exposed than others. The top of the telegraph pole is peeking into shot at top left. If left in that position the pole would have to be presented as leaning over or curving. | |
 | So clouds and greenery are copied and pasted over and the wires acoss the sky generally fitted. | |
 | As the complete image is filled out into a more regular rectangle the telegraph pole is added and the lower left and right details are darkened to hide their sins. This doesn't look so great and attracts too much attention. Though some cloud shapes and tones are not convincing I leave some of them because I figure people will accept them until they are told they shouldn't.
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The photo is quite big and here is a closer view. The detail raises the question of what the picture 'is about'. I like a bit of meat in my photographic sandwich. This one is a bit thin. The telegraph pole with wires provides something: a ramshackle building in a secluded point connected to the outside world by a couple of wires with a big sky and pole ambiguously emphasizing both the scope of seclusion and the immensity of the world at the other end of those wires. Yes, I know. But I need that kind of sense in a picture otherwise they are just dots of colour on a page.
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