"Thank God for Mississippi."

Thanks for visiting.

--Lannie

Lannie-I enjoyed this shot a lot. Great job of showing us the "past." I wish your lighting had cooperated a tad bit more--I feel it's a wee bit dark on the porch. I hope you shot several frames of this old house--I can image there were probably many opportunities! I do like the brownish tone the house is in this photograph--it looks like a sort of "antique finish" on the house which enhances the aged look. Congrats!

Thanks, Tyler. I did this in February, 2002, the year I first got into digital photography and the first year I seriously tried to produce anything other than family shots or mementos. I shall have to go find the original file to see if less contrast will bring out the porch better.

 

--Lannie

Tyler, I found the file. Here is a much more conservative treatment.

 

The posted version has had a lot of contrast applied, which created the dark areas. In addition, excessive sharpening is probably responsible for the curious grainy-beady look. The shot appears a bit soft on the more conservative treatment, and so I probably started sharpening out of necessity, and then found the grainy effect of oversharpening to be somewhat interesting. After almost five years, I can only imagine what I did and what went through my mind.

 

--Lannie

And here is the larger file from which the above were abstracted (which is my case for cameras with lots and lots of pixels--you never know what you will find later, after the day's shooting is over).

 

--Lannie

This is the only other shot I took of this place. This one was taken first, and as I was driving off I saw the other end of the porch, stopped and took the other shot. I could not get close enough to it to bring the porch closer.

 

When I squeezed off this first shot, I did not think that the place had much promise, since it was so overgrown.

 

I almost certainly would not have used a tripod to get these two shots. Sometimes these old houses are occupied, and sometimes the occupants are disposed to squeeze off a few shots of their own. So I probably hopped out of the car twice, took a couple of snaps, and then quickly drove off. Thus the soft image visible in the more conservative treatment of the porch.

 

I don't remember all that. I just know the South and I know that some places can spook me a bit, and it isn't about the houses or who used to live there, but who might still be in there. What I am describing is what I would do today in such a situation, and that is not likely to have changed.

 

--Lannie