Inside outside

[The_Traveler]

I took this picture in a coffeehouse that I go every Saturday morning.

It is an interesting look at the two parts of Baltimore - the yuppies and students come inside and spend way too much on coffee and organic vegan food while the poor people of the neighborhood wait outside in the cold for the crosstown bus that stops in front.

That was the whole point and I tried different PPing to make the point.

The glare from the windows is intense but I didn't want to expose for the outside and lose detail totally in the inside.
I tried blending a couple of images but I didn't like the result; it was too easy to see everything.
I wanted the viewer to look past the people inside and see the outside. Defocussing the foreground wasn't an attractive result either

Eventually I made another duplicate layer and make a layer mask that shielded all the 'outside'. then posterized that layer.
That removed some detail in the darker inside, the foreground, made the shadows deeper and the brights more luminious but with less detail to hold the viewers' eyes.
I wanted the viewer to see and recognize the iconic poses inside but be mostly aware of the outside.

Because of the incandescent light, the foreground was naturally warmer.

 

[weepete]

Nice catch lew!

 

[The_Traveler]

thanks for the look and the response.

 

[dennybeall]

Like the concept and like the picture but like it much better if the bottom of the picture with most of the table closest to the camera is gone.

 

[jcdeboever]

I would have cropped the crap out of the bottom (getting rid of tables closest to lens) or shot it in landscape. How you could eliminate the tilt is beyond me, maybe take it head on instead of the camera angled right and bring the camera up a little on the right side?