Abandon Hope

Abandon Hope was taken on a gloomy, overcast October afternoon in West Kirby on The Wirral. My first thoughts related to the credits at the beginning of the original  Star Wars film, but the gritty treatment and the tiny, solitary figure (who had ignored the warnings aimed at "all ye who enter here") resulted in something rather more sinister.  Needless to say, how this picture is received depends very much on whether judges and selectors actually see the figure.  It appears to be too subtle for some...

This is the original image straight out of the camera, and was always one of those pictures where a bit of Photoshop work was going to be inevitable.  The combination of the angle of the pathway and the position of the words written on it meant that either the writing or the horizon would end up level!  I chose the writing, so had to rotate the horizon to match.  The image was then cropped before being tone-mapped in Nik HDR Efex Pro.  Two versions were made: pure monochrome; and this one with a small amount of colour.  Unusually for me I prefer the colour version.  Canon 5DmkII, EF 17-40/4L, 1/50s @ f/11, ISO 200.

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