Windows of Germany: Second Look

Some of my family is visiting Germany this week, so I was inspired to take a second look at some of the images that I took while I was there in 2008. We’d gone to Germany to attend the German reception for our daughter and German son-in-law who had been married the previous month in our home town. We had a few days after the reception to hit some of the highlights of Germany but not much more. When I returned home, I was in the middle of high school senior portrait season so didn’t have the time to review the thousands of images that I came home with.

Peak-a-Boo

We spent one day in Heidelberg, Germany and visited the Heidelberg Palace that dates from the 13th century. It was an amazing piece of architecture and history and so vast that it was hard to know how to capture it in images. In one corner of the property I spotted this little face peeking out of the window. It appeared that the room he was in was a storage room for all sorts of architectural pieces that were waiting to be restored and put back in their proper place. I wondered how long this sweet face had been peering out of that window.

I only had a few seconds to capture his face and always wished that I’d had more time to play with different angles and compositions. So I had sort of dismissed this image, but when I went back and took a second look, I decided that there was something there. (You may remember from this post that SOOc stands for “straight out of camera”.)©Gail Haile_Peek-a-Boo_SOOC

With a bit of cropping to improve the composition, then enhancing the color and the detail, I really like this image. It does make you wonder how long he’s been in there and conjures up stories of being held captive during during one of the many periods of unrest that the palace was part of.

©Gail Haile_Peek-a-Boo

Windows and flowers!

Whenever I’ve been in Europe, I come home with hundreds of images of windows and doors. (Perhaps I should do a blog post about those?) The architecture represents so many different periods, back to the middle ages, that the diversity of styles is quite profound. And Europeans love to adorn their windows with flowers, especially geraniums, much more than we do here in the US.

This is a simple window image that I brought home from that trip to Germany. SOOC and soon after the trip, I wasn’t impressed and dismissed it.

Upon taking a second look, recently, I decided it just needed a bit of detail and color enhancement and a bit of straightening and it was no longer to be dismissed. I “painted” in a bit more contrast and detail in the plant to give it more dimension as well.