Thanks Allan, glad you like them
Marsha you're absolutely right about the light and shadow in pack, but I couldn't clone them out because its too complex (see, there IS and end to my PP skills!), and cropping the shot destroyed it because you could no longer tell it was a room. This is one of nine rooms in his shop, all of which you can get in, just! The front room is more conventional, though still incredibly cluttered. It's certainly a fascinating place.
I'm glad you like Art. I had a nice afternoon there, chatting to several people about photography including one of the guides who became more and more fascinated the more she saw me on the floor with the tripod in strange configurations!
Yes, the houses ARE boring on their own, but that's kind of the point; it shows what colour can do, as its the ONLY thing that causes you to even notice that they're there. I presented them like this because even with the colour, the shot was still snappy; this was the only angle I could get as its a narrow street with parked cars. I don't like PP that's the
only good thing about a shot, but hope that this takes a boring subject and emphasises the only interesting thing about it; the colour.
How I did it would take pages to write as it took ages, but here's the principal:
It's all about layers. To get your head around layers, you have to think of them as pieces of paper (you can do more with layers than with paper, but in this shot I've used none of the really clever stuff). I'll use the paper metaphor here.
Start with the original shot, and cut it into 5 rectangles so you have 5 smaller pieces of paper (5 layers).
Add a border to each piece, then lay them out on another piece of paper (the background, which is just a photo of some fabric pasted in as a new layer). Rotate and position them so they look good.
Cut out five pieces of black paper the same size as the pictures, and put them underneath each shot (five new layers), but offset by a millimetre or so to the bottom and left.
(Can't do this bit with paper) blur each black layer to make it look like a shadow.
Cut out a frame from a photo of a sheet of wood, and then cut out the same shape from a piece of black paper.
Lay the wood frame on top of the black frame, then on top of the picture.
Blur and offset the black frame layer to look like a shadow.
Glue all the pieces of paper in place (merge the layers).
Easy peasy!!!!
. Hats off to you for a great idea though. Well done for capturing the motion. How many clicks did take to get both shots just right?
