A church I drove by in rural southern Pennsylvania. I thunk it was cool...
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Thanks for your votes and comments. A few notes:
There was no dodging and burning done. The shadows on the church are shadows of the clouds. The sun is directly behind me. I left it as it was because it was most natural that way and added to the strangeness. I dont want 'perfect' images.
This is the second time I have used tonemapping on an image and the first time was because it was a rule of the challenge. I'm not too fond of the effect because, as Hot Pasta pointed out, it makes things look fake. But here, that was my purpose. The new American Gothic isn't real - its plastic, make believe, over the top fake. That's also why I used the fish-eye; the distortion was intentional and was exaggerate the fakeness even more.
When I came across this scene in rural Pennsylvania, we had been forced to pull over (my husband had to make a phone call. The sky was cloudy all day and it had been raining off and on. The only place we could stop was here. We were only in front of the church for about 5 minutes but the wind picked up and those dark clouds blew in. The red doors seemed to glow. The scene was just so strange - no cars, no people, this glowing church in the middle of no where on Independence Day - it all struck me as so otherworldly, a world I don't understand in the least, that I had to catch it.
Its not about religion, its not about God, it is about people and the faces they put on to the outside world.
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I love the story that goes with this! I also really like this shot, and oddly, for some of the reasons you detailed in your notes. It's like a little bubble world with a church dropped in. Almost like one of those snow globe things without the snow in a way. At any rate, I thought it a very cool shot.
great shot, really like the fisheye. i personally dont like the tonemapping, but still interesting take and I get your thoughts about the "fake" Am gothic. certainly makes the photo more interesting and would probably be much better as part of a series
Cool sky and I like the processing. The red door really pops here. The fish gives an interesting perspective, but I think this one would be even better with a bit of defishing.
The colors and the sky, combined with the wide angle distortion, makes this look like a painting. I wish we could see the whole tree on the left, and not at all the rightmost one. (Not voting).
this is an interesting capture; I wish the top of the church wasn't as 'burned in' as it appears; but i'm certian there is a reason for it and i'm just missing it right now (i'll look again b4 voting is done tho I doubt I'll edit my comment since i'm lazy like that sometimes) :-) I love the curved angle of the horizon and the red-doors witht eh path leeding your eye right into the center... its a very nice composition; the way the right side is burned in is really nice; and i think if the top was evenly burned in the same way... it would rate a 10 from me... right now i'm wavering between a 7 and 8- so i'm going to stare for a while longer while I decide :-) and re-visit b4 voting is done - but I like the stormy feel to this as well as the textures related in the grass, trees and clouds... :-)
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