Abandoned House Visit 1

[PixelRabbit]

So this morning I had to drive our daughter to school, it was raining off and on and my first thought was this place. It is just down the road from our house and I have photographed it a couple times now but wasn't super happy with the results but ... this morning it was wet and that is one of the conditions I was waiting for.

Here are my favourite shots from today before the rain started again. I will be revisiting this place a lot so C&C is greatly appreciated!

1.


2.


3.


4.


5.

 

[Trever1t]

#3 with it's awesome textures, cross-grained lines and colrs is outstanding if not just a wee bit dark.

 

[Frequency]

OWf!!! ...and the way you ended the story is awesome :thumbsup:

 

[KenC]

Yeah, #3. I would get closer and get some with just wood, and maybe the window, in the frame. Then I might be tempted to darken the mid-tones for a really rich, dark look. The rubble pile in the background of #4 looks interesting too, as are the metal roofs in #3 - is there a spot with more rust?

 

[PixelRabbit]

Thank you Trever, Frequency and Ken
Trever, I suspected it was a little dark, I intentionally tried to make the shadows black without blowing them to really make the colours pop. I agree a little less would work

Ken, thanks for the suggestion on the wood, I will give that a try. I'm still working on finding the compositions while I'm at the location instead of taking wide shots and cropping. This place is full of amazing bits and pieces!

I agree the rubble is very interesting, the barn JUST fell about a week ago, I'm definitely going to shoot it next time around.
The roof is pretty consistently what you see. I stared at it for a while today and know there is a really neat shot in there but the ones I took turned out kinda flatish, I'll def revisit.

 

[WesternGuy]

Two comments, as I think these images are quite good - a couple might be a little underexposed, but that is recoverable in post. First, would you please number your posted images as it makes it a lot easier for someone to review them if they are numbered - then I don't have to keep flipping back and forth to make sure I have the right image. Second - when I see something like these, I often think of HDR imagery and I was wondering if you have given any thought to trying this approach. Take a look at this image by Brian Matiash in one of his web postings - Hello. My name is Brian and I love HDR
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WesternGuy

 

[PixelRabbit]

Two comments, as I think these images are quite good - a couple might be a little underexposed, but that is recoverable in post. First, would you please number your posted images as it makes it a lot easier for someone to review them if they are numbered - then I don't have to keep flipping back and forth to make sure I have the right image. Second - when I see something like these, I often think of HDR imagery and I was wondering if you have given any thought to trying this approach. Take a look at this image by Brian Matiash in one of his web postings - Hello. My name is Brian and I love HDR
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WesternGuy

Hi WesternGuy and thank you.
I have been here long enough to know to number them, thank you for reminding me, my bad.

Being perfectly honest it is quite possible that the under exposure is my own doing in PP. I think I may have rushed these a little when I got excited about how they were turning out. A revisit is in order.

I'm absolutely interested in HDR, especially for my abandoned shots, thank you for the link. I've found that I'm so caught up in getting all of the basics right that I don't even think about bracketing at the time and have kicked myself for it more than once, including today!

I MUST educate myself on it so I can try it sooner than later.

 

[PixelRabbit]

Well... after tinkering for a good while with #3 to tweak the exposure... the power went out and I lost the edits *sigh*
I give for tonight and will try again tomorrow.

 

[hrgagan]

I can speak of only the first image, you could have taken this shot with the tree starting at the extreme right of your frame and house being to your left with the fence also in the frame, with all subjects in focus..Like the colours in the shot, did you use a brown filter to the first shot?
Thanks

 

[PixelRabbit]

I can speak of only the first image, you could have taken this shot with the tree starting at the extreme right of your frame and house being to your left with the fence also in the frame, with all subjects in focus..Like the colours in the shot, did you use a brown filter to the first shot?
Thanks

Thanks for the suggestion Hrgagan!
Nope didn't use a filter, I only upped the saturation a bit. Things are still rather brown around here, perhaps that is what is giving that impression?

 

[Heitz]

#1 is really great. Makes me want to visit this place and perhaps film a horror movie. Only suggestion -- I don't like that the wood holding up the red gate is partially obscuring the house. If possible, I would've moved slight left to get the house fully in view.

 

[Jaemie]

#1 is really great. Makes me want to visit this place and perhaps film a horror movie. Only suggestion -- I don't like that the wood holding up the red gate is partially obscuring the house. If possible, I would've moved slight left to get the house fully in view.

#1: Yes. The red gate deserves it's own attention, but it distracts, here, imo. I'd work on the house and keep the rule of 3rds in mind. That roof is awesome.

#2: Crop out spotlight thing but preserve the bottom doorframe and flooring if possible.

#3: There is so much great texture, color, etc. Maybe crop/re-shoot just the area with the window, green arch, rusty roof?

#4: Clone out wires, perhaps?

I think you're hitting the limit on color saturation, but it's working well in most of these images. I could photograph that green arch thing all day! Great stuff.

One last thought for future posts.. Maybe increase the image size available here or on your flickr. At the highest resolution, 800 x518, I'm still straining my eyes.

 

[PixelRabbit]

Thank you Heitz and Jaemie!

I took everyone's suggestions with me this morning including both of yours (I read your posts pre coffee this morn lol) and stopped again on the way home.

And I bracketed for possible HDR goodness! (now I just have to get the software and learn lol)

It is very foggy this morning so I didn't have a good sky to shoot against, will likely have to retake #1 again again.

I will post a few of the retakes hopefully later today.

Thanks again everyone for the input, it is helping me see differently and that is awesome. This place really deserves the best to show it in all it's glory IMHO