Sorry, We're Closed

Challenge #4 in the Life is like a box of chocolates series. Hosted by LeeStar.

Challenge has finished

Take a photo of a store that's closed. Can be from inside, outside looking in the window, a shot of the storefront from the street... Any kind of store as long as it's obvious the store is closed. For the evening or forever. Restaurants are okay too.

Show full rules

Announced:

Friday, 3rd February, 2012 (GMT)

Submissions:

Friday, 10th February, 2012 – Thursday, 16th February, 2012 (GMT)

Voting:

Friday, 17th February, 2012 – Thursday, 23rd February, 2012 (GMT)

Processing rules:

No HDR

Capture date rules:

No restrictions.

Additional rules:

I am from the USA. If it's considered a *store* or restaurant by common word usage in my country and is CLEARLY closed it fits the rules. If it doesn't, it will be DQ'd.

Maximum number of entries per user:

Maximum number of entries in challenge:

submission
phase has

ended

45 entries

voting
phase has

ended

756 votes

Slideshow 7 / 46 Full size Next Challenge Previous

Drogheria

by Michele Kappa

7^th place

2.774

low

high

An old grocery in Milano, August 2011

Camera:	Olympus PEN E-PL1
Lens:	Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 14-42mm 1:3.5-5.6
Submitted:	Monday, 13th February, 2012 18:34 (GMT)
Taken:	Saturday, 6th August, 2011
Focal length:	14 mm
Shutter speed:	1/60 sec
Aperture:	F3.5
ISO:	1000
Notes:	Cropped, straightened, white balance, sharpness, noise and color corrected
Views:	196
Galleries:	View this photo in Michele Kappa's gallery

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Entry comments

Total comments: 3

Michele, I thought it was pretty good, but the muted color scheme was a bit... muted. A conversion to B&W, followed by some work to get the contrast just right, might've made this even stronger.

Whether color or B&W, a bit of Local Contrast Enhancement probably would've brought out some of the textures a bit more. They're pretty good as-is, but subtlety isn't one of the virtues of my style of post-processing.

I'm also not 100% thrilled with the crop. In particular, the vent above the sign is a bit distracting. I'd probably have considered a 4:3 crop on this.

Since I haven't actually tried any of those suggestions, it's quite possible they'd just make it worse... but those are what I'd try.

Comment edited 31 seconds after posting

0 upvotes

Thank you for your comments Doug, they're really precious.
About the color scheme, it was a cloudy day and I tried very hard to put more contrast in it, but to no avail... I'm still a newbie in Lightroom and have to understand better its inner workings! Same applies to the contrast brush I used on the sign.
As for the crop, I usually avoid cropping (i prefer composing in my 4:3s camera and work as little as possible on cropping it later), but when I have to, I love using the 3:2 crop factor. It's one of those things I love from a dear friend's EOS 40D, which, by the way, was shooting with me that day.
And again, thank you a lot for this tips, I will surely think about them and learn a little more when I edit images in the future!

0 upvotes

Thank you everyone for voting on this photo! This is my first entry ever in a challenge, ANY challenge - so it's really very encouraging to receive 7th place in 46 entries.
I would love to know what you think about it, please share your thoughts and criticism - and please be creative and constructive about it!
Again thank you all. :)
Michele

0 upvotes

Total comments: 3

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