Ruin and Trees

A couple of busy days on hand right now. Tomorrow morning is D-Day for the car which is due its first National Roadworthiness Test. As it's only 4 years old and serviced andchecked over by my garage man only a week ago, I really don't have any reason to believe that it will fail but there is always the dreaded fear that they will find something. Anyway I have it cleaned out now for them, so it's fingers crossed.

With the final fettling to do this morning, and a visit from one of my brothers as well, there wasn't any time to wander far for a blip, so away with me a total distance of a few metres to the fence at the back of the garden. In the field out there lies this old farmhouse, no longer inhabited and nestled in a stand of equally old trees. I used to be able to shoot photos in and around the house but last summer the farmer who owns the land was compelled by the council to fence it off and to post notices to the effect that it is in a dangerous state. Since then part of the front wall has collapsed,so I guess there was some wisdom in their decision.

In an effort to break up the monotony a little, I decided to overlay a different texture. This time it is a shot of a neighbour's water feature, just a close up water flowing down a stainless steel slope. This I shot at a long exposure so as to show the movement in the water. The texture was overlaid on top of the original tree shot and blended in. I then rotated the water shot through 180 degrees and repeated the process. Instead of using the eraser to cut through the texture layers, I used layer masks, but that's another story. Finally, I decided that it looked better as a black and white than in the sepia version, so today you get "Ruin and Trees" in glorious living black and white.

Have a great day everybody!