Like a cell block
This image right here: this is why I don’t delete my images after a quick look when I upload them after a shoot. Nope – I keep everything except the ones that are completely over- or under-exposed.* Because you just never know…
This one was a victim of sloppy shooting. It was crooked and it needed a lot of work to correct the perspective. I tried fixing it a couple of times, but it never worked. Then, the other day, I felt like giving it another try. Why now? I know more about Photoshop than when I’d worked on it before and thought it was worth a little bit more attention.
Still it took a couple of tries to get what you see here, with horizontals and verticals lined up the way I wanted. After that, getting the rough and dark cell-block look I was after was easy.
Quanah, Texas
photographed 12.26.2014
*And yes, that does require a LOT of storage space….
UPDATE:
Someone over on my One Day | One Image Facebook page asked what this shot looked like before I worked on it, so here you go:
Posted on November 17, 2016, in Photography and tagged 365 photo project, abandoned buildings, black and white photography, melinda green harvey, monochrome, NIK Silver Efex Pro 2, one day one image, photo a day, photography, postaday, Quanah, Quanah Texas, texas. Bookmark the permalink. 29 Comments.
One Day | One Image 
Nice job straightening it up. That can be hard.
I looked up Quanah in Wikipedia. Some interesting people from there: a billionaire, an astronaut, a mass murderer …
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Thanks – even after all this time, I’m still learning new stuff in Photoshop.
And, not just ANY billionaire – the billionaire father of the infamous Koch brothers….
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Great job, Melinda…quite forbidding
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Thanks, Sue. It felt a little…unsettling there, and I didn’t stick around. (I didn’t even stay long enough to line up the shot, actually!)
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Well, you’ve created an atmospheric image alright!
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I like it!
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Thanks, Laura!
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Welcome!
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Nice pic. I work very hard (when I can) at getting the shot I want when I’m out in the field because I am not much good with Photoshop.
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I am usually better than this at getting it closer to correct in the field. I’m not too sure what caused this particular lapse!
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The extra effort was well worth it. Excellent composition!
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Thanks! I’m glad you like it.
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I like it too. Of side interest is Quanah Parker was a Cherokee leader who fought for the CSA. Supposedly the last officer leading troops to surrender. History ain’t dull.
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Quanah Parker’s history, in particular, isn’t dull at all – his mother was a white woman who’d been taken by the Comanches when she was a child. She was later rescued or kidnapped back, by white soldiers. My friend Andy Wilkinson wrote a song called “White Women’s Clothes” that was sung by Natalie Maines (before the Dixie Chicks). It’s a kick-ass song, but unfortunately I can’t find it anywhere to link to it. I posted the words – https://melindagreenharvey.com/2015/01/04/quanahs-truck/#comments – last year.
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Yeah, it was me who asked, thank you for uploading the original. Impressing levelling without ruining the upper window, and brava for seeing the potential of this image.
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That photo really REALLY wanted to be on the blog – every time I looked through that set of images, it caught my eye! And then, finally, I did something about it.
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🙂 I love it when they talk too.
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Okay, so did it take more than 5 hours to do this? Because, you know, Quanah is only 2.5 hours away from your place, and ….
Either way, this correction is very nicely done. And living in earthquake country, all I can think of when looking at the picture is I hope you don’t have even a small tremor because its going to fall down. Which would be an end to one terrific piece of rectangle heaven.
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So you think it would have been a better use of my time to just drive back to Quanah and reshoot this one? I completely see your point, and realize that you’re right to have brought it up. Because not only could I have fixed my earlier sloppy shooting, I could have found EVEN MORE old crap to photograph – it would have been a day well spent!
I’m not sure about the earthquake situation in Quanah – prior to fracking, I would have thought it safe from them. However….
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I knew you would recognise the subtext regarding more old crap. And, I did have fracking in mind when making that comment. We too are having unexpected earthquakes in NE BC, and the government scientists readily admit they are caused by fracking.
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We will, soon, no longer have government scientists down here. Because science isn’t real, you know. It should actually be called “science”. And anyway, the oil companies have the public’s best interest at heart all the time so there’s really nothing at all to worry about.
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Just think of the search traffic these comments are going to attract to your block. Maybe you will get some new followers…
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cell block
Koch brothers
Cherokee
Quanah Parker
Dixie Chicks
fracking
government scientists
Yep – that’ll be sure to draw in a…diverse group of folks!
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Not to mention:
crooked
kidnapped
lined them up the way I wanted
fall down
mass murderer
line up the shot
victim of sloppy shooting
upload them after a shoot
correct the perspective
rough and dark
I’m not much good
I am finally understanding how one optimizes a blog for search priority – what took me so long?
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That list takes a fairly benign blog post to a whole different place, doesn’t it?
I expect to see similar words popping up on your blog any day now…
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Well, “benign” doesn’t get you search hits. My blog has been shrinking away from words quite a bit, but I will do my best.
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Well, now that you know the Double Top Secret Tricks it’s time to start adding certain words back into your blog!
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OK. And it looks like maybe I should try changing my gravatar too, just to keep the secret thing happening.
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Indeed – gotta keep those secrets!
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