52:2013 Week 5

The theme this week was Post Apocalyptic and as soon as I knew the theme I had this image in mind. Here below is the original shot straight out of the camera. You can see two of the pillars are already in the shot which is what attracted me to this location in Lambton Quay in Wellington's CBD.  I went there about an hour  before sunset on Wednesday evening when I thought there wouldn't be a lot of people around but the lights would not be too bright.

I was using a wide angle lens close to the ground which adds distortion to the building that I left in as part of the "look". In Photoshop I started by copying the pillars and inserting copies around them. Also took the dome top of the building on the right and pasted it on the ground. The clear sky was removed and replaced with a dramatic sunset shot I had from a previous shot. Lights were then darkened with the paint brush. The paint brush was then used to break the windows on some of the buildings and make the building look a bit grubby. The cars and motor scooter were cloned out. I finally created a hole in the building  by painting a hole and using a shot of an exposed damaged building to add detail to the hole.

Taken back into Lightroom converted to black and white, adjusted the contrast and added a tone to the image. I had considered putting a vehicle in the middle of the intersection with the doors open but decided I preferred the empty/deserted feel that the image had. I enjoyed this image a lot and I am very happy with the result. You can view a larger version of the image at this link... http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulwallace/8433974117/in/photostream