It may LOOK like a shopping center, but it is indeed a church...a big one too. It fills this entire old retail plaza and fills the parking lot on Saturday evening and Sunday morning.

I thought I might see this one fairly soon. This is a cracking lifestyle mag type of shot. Great lighting, and the angle is spot on.

what a cool take on the theme. bravo!

Funny and different. Well done, Bob!

Great shot!!! I know this site all too well.

Congrats on the feature. I love the black and white choice.

could fit in the green topic too! Nice shot.

Much character in the shot with fine geometric design and textural details.

Well, Bob, you seem in harmony with Sher, recently: vegies and cookies (or ice cream?). Food!! (Mmmh, it's lunchtime for me).

Very good!
It says city to me without being obvious.

Well, I started this topic and suppose I should go out on a limb and make a stab at it too.

This was a macro shot I took this evening after work of some old dandelions. This one seed had attached itself to a bud for a new blossom and was flickering in the breeze. I shot this at about 1:2 macro setting using Tamron 90 mm f2.8 macro, shot wide open at ISO 400. I shot it RAW converting in Raw Shooter Essentials where I did some basic contrast adjustments before converting to jpeg.

After bringing into Photoshop, I created several adjustment layers. First a Level Layer with settings at 32, 1.00, and 198. Then a curve layer where I used a simple "S-Curve" and blended the layer in luminosity mode. Finally, I aded a color balance layer adjusting the red and blue channels slightly.

Next, I duplicated the background layer and applied a High Pass Filter to is at 20 pixels, blended using Soft Light.

I merged all layers, then resized, applied unsharp mask, and finally a slight Gaussian Blur.

Bob,

Thank you so much for putting this topic forward. It is just what I asked for in the vazaar group. As a complete beginner, and a nearly completely auto setting photo taker, I have relied on my eye to take my shot and don't really do any post processing. I hope this topic is going to help me experiment and produce some much better and professional shots. I am planning to take a distance learning photography course, so that I can start understanding all the terms you guys use. You have a language that you use that is foreign to me, so here is holding thumbs that I will be able to communicate better with all members in the future.

Thanks again

Greg

We all begin somewhere. I still feel I am a beginner in many ways even though I have been making pictures for nearly 50 years. Having a good 'eye,' whether with the camera or in post-processing is certainly the most important, so don't feel shamed because you rely on your eyes...ultimately, without them, we are all hacks. Don't be intimidated by the language -- it's pretty easy to pick it up as you work with the tools. I find that the most dramatic changes in my work happened when I began doing two things: shooting RAW and learning to use adjustment layers. I suppose everyone would have their own list.

Bob this is a terrific, concise explanation of how you got there, thank you for the details and the result is beautiful

Oh I need to correct something. I convert from RAW to TIF, not jpeg. Sometimes 16 bit (if I think I want to go towards a print for the image) but usually just 8 bit for web shots.

A colourful exotic-looking scene with the still waters providing a mesmerising composition of shapes.

Perhaps not the best photo, but I wanted to break the trend here as the topic description says not just geographical mountains.

Haha, I like it. Creative response.

I remember this from your blog. Perfect for the theme.

It is also one of two most commonly Googled pictures on my site. First is "Harrisburg Bridges" and second is "Scrap Buses" which was the title I gave this shot.

another mountain dimension - nice to see ;-)

Verrry cool. Is that with your new Holga?

Yes it is Brandon, one with a big VAZAAR logo on it! I am going to start doing my own processing because the only place here that does it charges too much! I did two rolls and it cost me $25 for processing and contact prints, and I had three images that I liked. Somehow $8 per picture seemed a bit steep to me.

Huge building and nicely captured, this looks like a fascinating place to photograph.. what was it, and where is it?

This was, until not too many years ago, DeJarnettes Hospital located in Staunton, Virginia. I seem to recall, as a child that DeJarnettes was affiliated in some way with the Western State Mental Hospital that was located a few miles from here. I believe this was (and probabably still is) owned by the State of Virginia.

I just looked it up on Google and found this interesting link: www.evilrainey.com/archives/urban_exploring/15

I guess on my next rip to my motrher's I will have to investigate more closely.

Here's another interesting link.

www.deenawarner.net/mambo/index.php?option=com_con...

Appears this place was named after a pretty infamous character.

fascinating stuff Bob, thanks for the cool information and your response