Epic & Glass ceiling - couple architectural shots

[jetrim]

Well my flakey model called 1 hour before the shoot and canceled today :mad2:
So I took a walk around downtown looking for interesting builings. "Glass ceiling" joins Wachovia Tower and the Federal bldg. "Epic" is a condo/hotel a few blocks south. Comments/suggestions welcome, as always.

[Didache]

I enjoy the first one .. if you didn't know it was a building, you would have to look at it and work it out. It is very symmetrical and I wonder if a more angled view might have worked too? But I love the second one - I like the way you have applied your processing to give it a dreamlike quality quite different than the usual uber-sharp approach. As a record/architecture shot it doesn't work for that reason, but as an impressionistic piece it works wonderfully.

Cheers
Mike

[Frog]

Looked at these a few times and don't have enough expertise to know what to say about them.
I do know I like the first better. Just all the angles and elements work together for me.
To me what is vertical looks horizontal and what is horizontal looks vertical. Kind of cool!

[LeeIs]

love the geometry here. I really like the 2nd shot. The perspective, the strong colours, the angles and shapes and the way it leads the eye in to the picture is much more effective than the first, which is a bit too flat for me.

[jetrim]

Thanks for the comments guys. This type of processing is a variation of the Orton Effect, and I really like the surreal "artist's conception" kind of feel it gives.

The workflow is almost too simple for the results it produces:
1. Duplicate layer
2. Convert bottom layer to B&W and bump the contrast
3. Gaussian blur the top layer (radius 24.00) and set blend mode to either Color, or Overlay, depending on which looks better
4. Merge all, and make any minor corrections (curves, HSL, highlight shadow)

I do have other variations/angles of both of these locations.

[jetrim]

A couple more of "glass ceiling" in a more traditional "non processed" format

[Mimi111]

Fabulous photos. Waaaay beyond anything I have knowledge about. And reading your explanation about the pp was interesting too. The one thing I have to say about the first one, is the white area in the centre just doesn't correspond with the rest of the picture for me. Now maybe that's the effect. But for me, it seems overly bright or like it should lead somewhere...and it doesn't. But that's just me.

I look at these types of things and have no idea how to even begin to photograph them. So take what I said with a big grain of salt!!

[starriderrick]

Jet' I really like the second as well,Mike's comments made me look at this fine impressionistic work in a way I would not have appreciated before.

Rick