I mentioned last week that the January assignment for the Bay Area Photo Club was "Old Galveston." I've literally walked by Demacks hundreds of times and even knew some of the children of the original owners when I was in high school, so the building has always drawn me to it somehow. Maybe it's because so much of the Strand was redeveloped for tourism back in the 1980s. Demacks always seemed out of place - an operating produce supplier in the middle of a tourist-oriented, family-friendly destination. I guess deep down maybe I thought the modern commercial outlets were the ones out of place; Demacks seemed to fit better into the Strand environment. It bucked the trends and lasted for many years until it eventually fell out of business. So it has stood vacant for about the last 7-10 years. The image I posted on Monday showed the exterior. The image above was shot through one of the broken windows shown at street level in the previous post. For you photographers out there, the original image (below) was a 5-shot HDR, converted to sepia with Nik Silver Efex, distressed with some scratch brushes, and framed with an OnOne Photo Frame antique edge. I ultimately used the antiqued version for the photo club assignment. What a paradox though - shooting an HDR only to grunge it up to look old. But maybe that fits right into the mystique of Demacks - it still stands while the tourist businesses now scramble to reopen after Ike.
The sepia version is awesome Steve. It just has that old time feel about it. I think the scratches give it an air of authenticity.
ReplyDeleteI think that the basic shot is very good, but your post processing of this one is really outstanding. It really takes the subject and places it into the right time and the right orientation.
ReplyDeleteI have studied your boarder and your texture selection and cannot see where you could even start to improve on it.
Great job.