Botanica

A street scene from the Adams Morgan neighborhood in Washington D.C. I thought there was an interesting mash of religious symbolism going on in this store front. Your Comments or critiques are always welcome. :D

CL, it seems like there are some conflicting light sources going on, but you did a nice job capturing the different elements of the picture.
John

I like the reference to 'Paradise' in this shot combined with the neon lights and more to the point, the badly fitted neon lights!!

Thanks for sharing
Herriot

Very interesting storefront. It reminds me of St Marks pl in the East village. D, could verify that , I think. I like the subject, but somehow the framing is a little tight and awkward in its symetry or lack of. The bottom line is that it is interesting to look at, and therefore an effective phot.

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Originally Posted by gahspidy

Very interesting storefront. It reminds me of St Marks pl in the East village. D, could verify that , I think. I like the subject, but somehow the framing is a little tight and awkward in its symetry or lack of. The bottom line is that it is interesting to look at, and therefore an effective phot.

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I have been having trouble figuring out how to slice this one and resolve some of the awkwardness of the framing. Any suggestions are indeed welcome.

CL,

I think what you need to do is sort out the perspective in Photoshop so that all the architecture is parallel to the frame. I've come back to this photo several times and that is all I can suggest to make it better.

As it stands you may need to re-shoot to get the symmetry but its worth persevering with this. My opinion of course.

Roger

Found the un-cropped original for this one and tried again. Any better?

Wow! Does this bring back memories. Botanicas as all over New York and New Jersey. A big part of the Puerto Rican culture (and other latin cultures) that's for sure. I'm not sure how all cultures viewed it, but I know that my family shyed away from them as being the houses of witches and evil. I knew of a few people who would go there looking for incantations and spells and potions. I don't know what really went on in those, but I could never see anything worse than some candles, strange statues and herbs. What you want to shoot is the interior of one of these places!!

Ok, as to the image I like the original uncut version. It's more eery than the first post, and it fits with my idea of what a botanica is. At first I thought it was leaning but the more I look at it, the more it works with the quirkiness of the subject. I think this is a great shot!!

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Originally Posted by CLKunst

Found the un-cropped original for this one and tried again. Any better?

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CL,

I was think something more like this, hope you don't mind I copied the file and did a skew on it and I delete the picture once posted back here.

Roger

Thanks for straightening me out Roger! :p Did you just tug on the left corner a bit or crop and tilt to make the bar at the bottom level?

D - I know what you mean about these places. My mom would D-I-E DIE if she thought I was frequenting a "Voodoo hut" like this one. It does look interesting but I never get into this neighborhood until late at night so I haven't had a chance to go inside. But I think you're right, a picture from the inside looking out would be worth it (poor Mom). Perhaps a day trip is in order when the weather warms up. Thanks for your kind words, you've really come far in your analysis since you signed on here. I agree with the eeriness you feel. The blue lighting and all those staring dolls was too much to pass up. In fact I had not even noticed this shop until I was walking back to the car and I thought to myself 'WOW, was that there the whole time or did it just appear because I was ready?' Spooky. . . . :eek:

[QUOTE=CLKunst]Thanks for straightening me out Roger! :p Did you just tug on the left corner a bit or crop and tilt to make the bar at the bottom level?

QUOTE]

No that didn't seem to work with the verticals so I used the skew feature which allowed me to pull on all 4 corners to get the effect I wanted. I didn't worry about accuracy and so not all the verticals are 100% accurate, took me about 4 secs to do, Just wanted to show the effect I thought would work.

Hope that helps.

Roger

what a wonderful, garish combination! I prefer the uncropped version and my only suggestion would be to have a bit more space to the right, other than than, colors & definition great, it's an interesting bit of street scene!

Thank you Roger, that does indeed help.

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Originally Posted by blsmadrid

what a wonderful, garish combination! I prefer the uncropped version and my only suggestion would be to have a bit more space to the right, other than than, colors & definition great, it's an interesting bit of street scene!

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Thank you for looking. It is exactly that garishness which stopped me in my tracks.