Abandoned Gas Station

[fennario]

Thanks in advance for any comments/thoughts.

[Jeremy Roussak]

The pumps stand as if alien beings. I'm not keen on the sky, which has a colour that I've never seen. I wonder if a rather tighter crop, concentrating on the pumps and the station in the background, wouldn't give a better, stronger picture; but of course it would remove the context.

Jeremy

[amolitor]

The sky feels wildly overprocessed, and I'm not crazy about the tanks or whatever they are in the distance on the left of the frame. The vegetation has a sort of weird color to it, but I believe the color after a moment. I think trying to push the "winter" aspect a bit more, perhaps with a little less color saturation, or even pushing the white balance over to cooler tones, might help both with selling the vegetation and making the image work as a whole.

The pumps are definitely the killer element of the frame, but you run the risk of "snapshot of a cool thing I saw" effect if you're not cautious. I agree that a tighter crop would probably strengthen the image, but I wouldn't go much tighter.

[Jim Pascoe]

The pumps make me think of a bunch of gunfighters waiting for a shootout!

Jim

[RSL]

The sky feels wildly overprocessed. . .

+1

I agree that a tighter crop would probably strengthen the image, but I wouldn't go much tighter.

-1

[Mcthecat]

Looks like its been shot with a polarisor if thats the spelling. Mono conversion and the sky will really shine. Great picture, i like it a lot.

Mick

[amolitor]

Let me rephrase. Not a tighter crop, but get slightly closer and reshoot

[fennario]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions - all well considered and received.  Was using a polarizer and also pumped the processing towards the surreal.  The crop has been a difficult decision as well.  Like the lines of the mountains/sage in this version but agree that the silos are distracting.  Getting closer the next time I pass by the spot is on my list (if it's still there).  Thanks again.

-J

[amolitor]

After due consideration, my beef with the silos in the background is not their presence but the fact that they look accidental. Re-framing from exactly the same distance but placing the gas station more right in the frame would a) make the silos deliberate and b) push the subject a bit off center. The centering is bothering me a little.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Reprocess the sky. Nothing else needs to change. The pumps are amazing.

Leave off the polarizer if you revisit the scene. Or replace the sky with a sky from a more normal scene so it doesn't draw attention away from the gas station and pumps.

If it were mine, I'd probably zap the storage silos with "content-aware fill."

A B&W conversion might avoid the sky problem, as Ansel made us all believe that dark skies are OK in monochrome.

Eric

[Rob C]

Nice picture just as it is; life doesn't come in neat little packages and there's nothing at all wrong with the tanks on the left any more than there is with the telegraph pole on the right; surprised the revisionists didn't want to disappear that, too.

The pic you've made is reportage, pure and simple, a reminder of a life that was and is no more; who has the right to mess with that and create a sanitized little fable? It's how those hopes and ambitions were built, survived a spell and then gave way to 'progress' that killed a dream. If anyone wants to record how things were, be honest, at the very least; leave the remains as they are and leave the fibs and fantasies to advertising: we're generally quite good at that.

Rob C

[graeme]

Nice picture just as it is; life doesn't come in neat little packages and there's nothing at all wrong with the tanks on the left any more than there is with the telegraph pole on the right; surprised the revisionists didn't want to disappear that, too.

The pic you've made is reportage, pure and simple, a reminder of a life that was and is no more; who has the right to mess with that and create a sanitized little fable? It's how those hopes and ambitions were built, survived a spell and then gave way to 'progress' that killed a dream. If anyone wants to record how things were, be honest, at the very least; leave the remains as they are and leave the fibs and fantasies to advertising: we're generally quite good at that.

Rob C

+1

An intriguing picturew.

[WalterEG]

I like the shot a lot - almost to the point of envy.

I understand the sky but don't necessarily think it is as good as it could be.

However, a mono conversion would probably make the sky more acceptable to today's (and Lu_la loonie) taste.  It is not that long ago that people like Eric Meola made a name for themselves with skies like this.

Regards,

W

[Peter McLennan]

It's all about the soldiers for me.

I'd have moved the camera position slightly to the right to place the light standard between the three gas pumps, and not aligned with the edge of one as it is now.  I'd crop as much of he BG as I could to emphasize the soldiers and yet just barely retain the sense of location.  

It's too wide.

[Dave (Isle of Skye)]

Great shot, really atmospheric feeling of abandonment and remoteness, especially with the storm moving in from the right - it reminds me of the final scenes from the original terminator movie. But the over polarisation is not helping the sky.

You might be able to correct this in PS if you wanted to, by duplicating your background, sampling the lighter blue from the edges of the sky, then creating a selection from the blue channel and using fill. It would probably need some feathering and mask tweaking etc to make it look totally convincing, but could be done. Alternatively you can avoid most of this uneven darkening effect in the sky, by turning the polariser back about half way from full.

Dave

[WalterEG]

Peter, I do agree about the lateral placement with regard to poles and merges.

Cheers,

[ivan muller]

Great find and nicely captured...the problem with polarizing filters are that they more often than not give an uneven sky...so much so that I stopped using them a long time ago. This is the type of image that cries out for a medium format camera and a shift lens so that the verticals can be perfectly straight...or even better a 4x5 camera and b&w film...

[WalterEG]

Great find and nicely captured...the problem with polarizing filters are that they more often than not give an uneven sky...so much so that I stopped using them a long time ago. This is the type of image that cries out for a medium format camera and a shift lens so that the verticals can be perfectly straight...or even better a 4x5 camera and b&w film...

I concur on the Polariser Ivan, especially with wide angle lenses.  And I seldom think of anything but my 4x5 and B&W.

Cheers,

[langier]

Closer to the pumps-- make them stand out, IMO. Also I hoped you got close enough to check out the prices left on the pump. Even at 10x what was left there, it would be a bargain today!