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Electrifying


Electrifying
Photo Information
Copyright: Curtis Grindahl (cgrindahl) Silver Star Critiquer/Gold Note Writer [C: 15 W: 2 N: 59] (225)
Genre: Places
Medium: Color
Date Taken: 2004-05-29
Categories: Experimental, HPP [Heavily Post-Processed]
Camera: Nikon Coolpix 5700
Photo Version: Original Version
Date Submitted: 2004-06-01 11:04
Viewed: 555
Points: 10
[Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note
This electrical substation is in the downtown center of San Rafael adjacent to a new apartment complex. For years the area around the rather unattractive substation was undeveloped but the land was simply too valuable to overlook. Developers built the apartment complex next door, as well as a lovely pair of office buildings across the street. No one thought of moving the rather unattractive substation, which provides much needed electricity to the community. For those who don't know, the electricity transmitted into communities is generally of an extremely high voltage (345,000 volts) and must be "transformed" into lower voltage before being delivered to our homes. In the United States it arrives at 110 volts while in Europe it is 220 volts. I decided to play with the concept of the "electrifying" nature of electricity with this image. This is how it was done...

1) Adjusted levels, applied USM for sharpening, cropped and copied on second layer.
2) Desaturated the background layer and applied the Photo Filter for sepia to give the image a bit warmer cast.
3) On second layer I erased everything but the coils at the top of the three transformers, that were still colored a deep brown.
4) Saturated the coils as far as possible, creating the multi-colored appearance, then played with hue until I got a mix of colors that I liked.

Electricity is a very powerful force in our world, one which we typically take for granted. If we flip a switch and the light goes on we're content. If a fuse is blown we're disturbed for a moment. Yet we don't often consider the magnitude of the operation that creates and distributes this power that keeps our computers running, our homes lighted, our refrigerators cooling our food. It is all "electrifying."
Galeota, Jep, pamastro has marked this note useful
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Discussions
ThreadThread Starter Messages Updated
To pamastro: Wonderful image...cgrindahl 1 06-05 01:41
To Jep: I hope I didn't butcher it...cgrindahl 1 06-05 00:25
To Galeota: Tedious work too...cgrindahl 1 06-01 17:47
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Critiques [Translate]

A very interesting photograph of an electrical sub station. The image is very detailed and very vivid, your post processing really enhances the concept of "electrifying"!
I like the image, and think it is well seen, and captured as well as presented, your note is also very good.
Well done.
::M::

  • Great 
  • Quark Gold Star Critiquer/Silver Workshop Editor [C: 1339 W: 10 N: 29] (66)
  • [2004-06-01 14:08]

Funny and beautiful with these colours !
Nice pic, Curtis !

This came out funny..and I guess you had real fun doing it! The note is very detailed. Good work.

  • Great 
  • Jep Gold Star Critiquer/Silver Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 131 W: 16 N: 97] (585)
  • [2004-06-04 16:44]
  • [+]

Hello Curtis (its me Jeppe from TE ;-) so we meet here as well - as electrical engineer I like this shot very much - you actually but life to those isolators - Thanks for sharing your techniques as well - must try some day.

Very cool work here. You really got the electric across in this shot. It also makes me think of something that could be in a 50s SciFi B-Movie. Like this is the mad scientists laboratory with all these crazy coils and glowing, bright, colors. Very impressive work here. Very cool. Very nicely done.

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