A recent post I did mentioned Dewitt Jones, and in his talks he speaks about there being more than one right answer – in Photography and in Life, as he relates how he approached various assignments. These days, it also relates to how we process an image – how we interpret it.

Today’s blog images didn’t come from a wishy-washy inability to decide on what’s right, but rather from asking myself how I felt about the scene, what I wanted to express about it,  and as I began to play, I asked myself ‘what if‘ and that sent me down several paths. As I finished one image, I went back to the original, and asked the question about. All of them represent something old, or perhaps a dream/memory, so they all were in keeping with the original theme that made me create the picture in-camera – Bodie is old, and I wanted to stay true to that but put a spin on that concept.

The main blog post was processed using an Orton-inspired montage technique of combining two digital layers together, with one blurred and set for overlay. The second image was created using a normally adjusted image layered with a black and white layer processed using Nik’s Silver Efex Pro. I then added a mask on the black and white layer, and painted back in the color on the hat. The third image was processed with my own preset for an old grainy film look, using Topaz Adjust. The fourth and final image started with a normal adjusted layer, and the incorporated Flypaper Textures’ Texture File Colosseum Sienna and Edges #19 on layers with blending options and then painting back in certain areas with the brush.  It looks to me like a faded old photo of Bodie, one my grandfather might have made.<br/ >
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In the end, a few hours play on the computer looking at how one image could express different feelings/moods proves the point of more than one right answer!

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