I’ve uploaded my image for the 2010 Deck collection on the site. It seems I’ve been in a monochrome rut for the last few weeks. It’s actually interesting this time, since I usually only make monochromatic shots for a few reasons;
- I initially look at the scene and believe from the start that it will look good as either black and white or sepia
- The sky was blanket grey and made an otherwise lovely scene look drab – I’m a sucker for a blue sky.
- The post process intention was to give the image an older look
In this image, I actually got a lovely blue sky with those white clouds encroaching, something about the decaying building bothered me and I decided after some contemplation to render this in monochrome. I am mostly a fan of “whole buildings” but occasionally I like the partials 🙂
For the post-processing details, I did a bit of distortion correction and then did the monochrome editing in Nik Silver Effects.
This post is also going to be the first post where I do a bit of social commentary, in this case, specifically brought about by my photos of City Hall yesterday.
It is shameful that such a beautiful building, with so much history can be allowed to deteriorate like this, pieces are literally falling off. I don’t know about anyone else, but I pay my taxes, and I would expect certain things in return. I expect them to clean the drains REGULARLY, I’ve only seen them in our area once since I moved in more than two years ago, I even expect them to maintain the parapets, you know, weeding etc., again, never saw them, and I expect them to maintain City Hall! even if it was a crappy building, they should do it, but because it is such beautiful architecture, it is not only a good idea to keep the building that houses the governing body of the city in good repair, it is also their social responsibility to ensure that this piece of history is maintained and not become a part of history, relegated to photographs and memories.
Sadly, it may come to the point that restoration may not be an option and the building will probably be replaced by some concrete box with little or no character. From a photography standpoint, that would be disastrous 🙂
The Michael Lam Collection's Blog 
I love this shot, never seen this angle before…pertaining to rates and taxes; that only covers garbage collection as far as I know, you’re still better off, after five years where I am living the drains were never cleaned nor were the parapets weeded.
Sad indeed, but that another building that will fall. I think they have a society responsible for the maintenance of these buildings, I guess they’re busy…………..
Did you know that my transport states that I am responsible for cleaning the drains and keeping my surroundings clean and tidy? They don’t even make a pretense of giving you anything for your rates and taxes anymore.
Did you realise that we also missed taking pictures of the Castellani designed old New Amsterdam hospital. It was such a beautiful building they just allowed to collapse. All that beautiful wood work and architecture is slowly going to feed fires and patched shacks as the wood is slowly stolen by scavengers.
I realise that we are a poor country with limited resources, but if we cannot preserve our heritage then we are not going to hold on to anything worthwhile. I can understand if a fire takes something, that is unavoidable, but to just let them fall apart like this, while they squabble about who get the new Prado this year. You just have to wonder where exactly we are going.