Fear not! This week’s blog is not about the noisy, violent science fiction film now hitting the screens, but about the transformative treatment of an original image to extract a satisfying abstract composition. Here is the original.

Original TransformerCopyrighted Digital Photograph

Playing it straight

Uncomfortably positioned next to a traffic light post in New York, so as to further stabilise the camera while trying to avoid being jostled by pedestrians, I was photographing in pale grey light and faced with a major composition choice. That choice was the very reason I had stopped to capture the scene: how to use the juxtaposition of the vertical buildings and the sharply curved, glass-fronted building on the right?

Also, the contrast of sky and shadows and the likely lens distortion of the pale blue skyscraper were potentially distracting, as were the slanting horizontal and vertical lines of the power wire and white edging to the glass building. Finally, my preferences for a narrow aperture to improve depth of field and a decent quality of ISO generated a slow shutter speed. This resulted in my squirming around trying to create a virtual tripod from my monopod, the traffic light post and my legs (maybe that should be a quadropod?)

As you see, my immediate decision was to capture it classically, with the verticals of the red brick building and the grey apartment blocks being respected, leaving the rest of the diverging angles to do as they pleased. I did not think quietly or slowly enough at the scene to frame the image otherwise, so any image treatment would need in-computer adjustments. Sadly, impatience is my worst photographic defect - and doesn’t help me in other areas of life, either!

Order from disorder

Back in my digital darkroom, I reviewed the image with excitement, because I sensed the opportunity presented by the “faults” of the original. Here is the result:

Transformer TransformedCopyrighted Digital Photograph

Feeling my way in the image editing software

The two compositional elements attracted me aesthetically were the reflection of the grey building in the curved glass surface and the power wire crossing the line of the curved building’s white edging. On the negative side, the slant, colour and distortion of the tall blue skyscraper did not appeal to me.

I reached for the “straighten” tool in Nikon Capture NX2 and played with the results obtained from altering the original horizon of the image. Adjusting the tool experimentally, a potential solution to my aesthetic preferences popped into view very quickly. I was attracted by the now-twisted, mirror image of the apartment building, but the crossed lines were still askew.

Therefore I next chose “distortion control”, whose intention is to straighten lens distortion, such as is visible in the original image. My concept for the image was to invert the process and increase distortion in the centre, such that the crossed lines moved into a near horizontal and vertical alignment.

Finalising the image was routine, using a crop to erase the blue building and lightening and sharpening the final result.

Final Effect

I was pleased that the treatment of the mirror image and the creation of a quadrant, focussed attention on the attractive elements of the image and created an interesting abstract. Another reason for the increased visual interest is the original shape and architectural design of the apartment building, whose distortion lend themselves to pleasing window shapes and silhouette.

Finally, if you are a “pixel peeper”, you may wish to look more closely in the lower right quadrant and spy the very “New York street” indicator hanging from the power wire. Enjoy!

Technical

Camera: Nikon D800

Lens: VR 70-200mm zoom f/2.8G

Vibration Reduction:  On

Focal Length: 100mm

Focus Mode: Manual

Aperture: f/ 14

Shutter Speed: 1/30s

Auto Focus -Area Mode: Single

Exposure Mode: Aperture Priority

Exposure Compensation : 0EV

Metering: Matrix

ISO Sensitivity: 400

Mounted on a Monopod