So the other day — actually the same windy day I took yesterday’s fountain/banner photo — I saw the potential for a different kind of interesting photo. There was a plastic cup being batted around on the ground by the wind. Here’s what the scene originally looked like:

Look at those cool shadows from a bench nearby being cast on that plastic cup. Nifty, no? When I saw it, I had something in mind to do with it photographically in my digital darkroom. But it wasn’t easy to get what I wanted in the photo. The empty cup was so lightweight that it kept moving around with the wind, which meant that I couldn’t get exactly the shot I needed.

Then I had the inspiration to pick up the cup with a kleenex and then put the kleenex in the cup to add ballast. That resulted in this photo:

Of course, there was then the problem that the kleenex is visible in the cup. However, in my digital darkroom, I did my envisioned-in-my-head-at-the-time changes to the photo to play with light and shadow and flipping the photo on its side. Plus I cropped out the kleenex.  So here’s the version I created, based on what I “saw” in my mind at the time:

You see, I envisioned those shadows and lines as a black and white kind of study; the original dark shadows are now the light vertical lines, and the green grass bits around the pavement blocks are now bright white, through the use of some black and white film filter concepts.

Fun — but I decided it still needed something. So here’s my final version:

Yup. Definitely prettier in pink. 😉