Post Processing:
- deform tool to fix horizon line
- gamma & contrast adjustment
- spot editing to remove
a.) two small distractions on road
b.)to fix small area on road's white line
c.) to fix tong bottoms of fork to look more natural and to give the illusion that the fork is not stuck in the pavement and
d.) spot edit of sharp tool to fork
-then a crop.
How it was done?: Simple. First I looked up the word "fork" in google to get some inspiration, and hence came the inspirational "Fork in the Road" concept. I brought two forks with me. One was a regular fork and one was a large barbecue fork. Just in case I had to actually stick the fork in a dirt road rather than pavement, I brought a larger fork. Put both forks in my purse, and told hubby I was going shooting. He shook his head, and smiled, and I was off to this spot (explained below). When I arrived, it took me a while to find a spot that the fork could be stuck in to and which would have an interesting horizon. The hole was small, but a bit of finagling of the pavement and I got the fork to stay. Many shots were taken sight unseen, as I had my not-so-great camera at ground level and couldn't see the monitor. So I shot many a photo and tried to check them out best I could afterwards in the LCD. When I got home that is when I found what were some decent shots. (Maybe 3 out of all of them to work with.) I then tilted the horizon to straighten it in PSP, which actually made the fork look out of sorts, almost levitating, and not naturally up in the air. I liked it though, especially when hubby asked how I got that look afterwards :) Then I played with the tongs, as one was badly bent from the disruption of the pavement I did with it. I used the pavement around the tongs as an airbrush pattern and airbrushed them to make them appear more natural. I gave a bit of contrast and lighting adjustments to the entire photo, and then blended out a road sign (barely visible in the distance) and two small distractions in the road, along with fixing the white line which had a blackness to it in one small area. When I cropped it, the top of the tree on the right was a bit chopped out, so I smudged the top a bit with the sky to bring the tree down and look natural. To bring out the fork I gave it a bit of touch up with a sharpening tool. Normally our skies in Florida are just plain blue, other than first morning or post storm. This was taken first of the morning, so I lucked out with some nice clouds in the background.
That's it! Wha-lah! Hope you like it!
As for this area of town........
This is a large area of town where development is taking place, therefore I had a lot of time to spend on this rarely traveled and new road. It was nice to also have a new white line to work with. I go here a lot since discovering this area. Lots of wildlife and open skies. It was also nice that no telephone poles had been put in yet. This allowed for me to get a nice non-disruptive horizon for background. Not having the traffic also helped, as I did not have to worry about getting hit by a bus while crouching for this shot and for a long period of time, as many shots were taken for the right one :)
The only thing that would have made this shot nicer is if I could have found a hole directly on the white line in order to get the fork straight on, but you have to take what you can in sometimes :) Actually, the way the fork crosses the white line allows for a secondary "fork" in the shot - not to mention the tree branches also show more forks. What would have also been nice is if the crows that flock this area with their large wing spans could have flown by during the shot, but nature is tempermental that way. Later on, after this shot was done, I did get some nice photos of flying crows.
All in all, I admit the shot could have been better technically, but I blame that on my camera. Next year I finally get my Rebel XT, so there will be no excuses :)
Thank you ahead of time for those that voted and found this shot interesting. I am only HOPING that there aren't "too many" duplicates of this concept. :)
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