This is an abandoned building tucked up right under downtown Fort Worth, behind the jail and overlooking the river.
The homeless regularly use it as shelter, and one of them left this jacket hanging on a nail. My original intention was to try (again) to get a photo of this interesting abandoned building, but I can never get the building to stand out from the surrounding trees well enough to satisfy me.
My thought with the title was "Home is where you hang your hat", but it's a jacket, not a hat, or "Home is where the heart is", but the heart graffiti heart on the wall does not bring much love for the residents of this place. I decided to leave the exact interpretation up to the viewer, but still wanted to make it clear that someone resides here.
-Photomatix basic (freeware version) to merge 3 JPG exposures, 1 stop apart. (SLR is out of commission, so I am using my Powershot S5)
-A light dusting of Topaz detail
-Followed by Topaz Adjust
-Then some PSP clarify.
-Then I duplicated, Gaussian blurred the dupe and multiplied. Masked the dupe toward the middle in order to slightly darken the outer part of the image.
-Then cranked up the red a bit to draw the eye to the jacket a little more.
-Resize, sharpen and save. Had to use a little more compression than I would like, but I am probably the only one anal enough to notice it.
This is the out of the camera version of the medium exposure:
Pre-challenge notes:
Not a clue how this will do. I may be in for another low 5, as I expect to be competing against lots of fantastic eye candy from some very skilled people.
Anticipated critiques:
-Composition is too centered. (Agreed, but I could not compose this to my liking any better. I had several other perspectives, but did not like them as much.)
-Don't understand what is being conveyed by this scene
-Too heavy handed with the tonemapping. Looks cartoony.
-Not heavy enough with the tonemapping. Not enough of an HDR look to it.
Post-challenge notes:
My prediction was way off, and this turned out to be a very good one for me. The #5 spot on my profile page, #4 spot on the Powershot S5 page, and even Posthumous liked it. Did way better than the first HDR shot I entered of this place.
No complaints here!
Statistics
Place: 35 out of 155 Avg (all users): 6.2880 Avg (commenters): 6.1000 Avg (participants): 5.9643 Avg (non-participants): 6.5421 Views since voting: 1927 Views during voting: 435 Votes: 191 Comments: 17 Favorites: 1 (view)
I was one of your 8's. I really like the color contrast of the coat with the concrete and chalk - besides it being outdoors. The HDR really made the textures of the coat stand out.
i still really like this. not sure i like the blue graffiti sticking out as much as it is. and i would have preferred a slightly different crop. but i still like it:) no vote
Add photograph to your favorites
Add photographer to your favorites
Photographer found comment helpful.
