Through the looking glass

In this case, the looking glass being the window of an antiques store.

I was walking around Wheeling the other day looking for things to shoot, mostly to test a new camera. I like to try out a camera in a variety of real world shooting situations and take photos of things I normally shoot to get a real evaluation on how the gear will perform for me, rather than shooting test charts.  One of the things I like to shoot is items at antiques stores, especially when they have displays on the street in front of their store. Perhaps unknowingly to the proprietors, the displays become found still lifes for me and in the right light they can make for some marvelous photos. Unfortunately, it was somewhat late on a weekend day and this store was closed, but as I looked around the three glass containers on the shelf in the window caught my eye. I was able to snug my lens up against the window glass to eliminate any street reflections and got a “clear” shot of the containers.

I did a color version of this photo the night that I took it but for some reason today I wondered how it would look in black and white. I used Topaz B&W effects for the conversion, followed by a little dodging and burning and then added a bit of an orton “glow” to the overall photo. A vignette helped to darken some of the other distracting items in the picture and put the focus on the vessels.

Vessels

© David Guidas
Lumix GX1, 14-42