visual parallels, odd juxtapositions, odd image processing

Sometimes I see visual parallels in things that might strike you as unrelated. A drooping basketball backboard and the drooping tree branches behind it. A "straightforward" rendition of this take didn't convey what I felt when I shot it, so I "cooked things" just a little in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. Here's the straight shot:

Here's what I came up with in a few minutes of fiddling. It's much more like what I "saw", i.e., what went through my mind as I tripped the shutter.

If you're curious, basically I increased contrast by a few different methods (contrast and clarity in Lightroom, partially masked "multiply" layer in Photoshop), allowing some of the shadows to go black. This is similar to what I might have gotten years ago by shooting Fuji Velvia slide film, under exposing to maximize saturation and highlight detail, and "cooking" the print a bit (mostly by filtration) to optimize the results.

To me, the dark shadow under the tree and the contrast of the drooping branch fit with the falling-down backboard and its scratched and worn surface. Gritty suburban disrepair? An overblown interpretation if taken literally, but maybe enjoyable if taken lightly.

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