Postcard from Oakland–Windows not by Microsoft

Welcome once again to beautiful downtown Oakland. I promised more architectural photos from this city on the east side of San Francisco Bay, and today I deliver another one. Every time I think of Oakland, I am reminded of the infamous quote by Gertrude Stein (part of the Lost Generation of the 1920’s in Paris). Of Oakland, she said, “There is no there, there.” Sorry Gerty, I tend to disagree…especially in the 21st century. Where once I might have agreed with her, I find Oakland a changed place.

I can’t tell you exactly where I photographed these old windows, but it was very near the old Fox Theater, so it may be on Telegraph Ave also. Boy, did I hit the light right on this image! I love how the 2nd and 4th windows reflect blue sky and windows 1, 3, and 5 have a more Cyan color with some green thrown in for good measure. Trust me when I tell you that this is not some Photoshop or LightRoom trick…this is how they came out. And of course yellow always offsets blue quite nicely…and thrown in the other elements of composition here and you can say I hit the jackpot. Also, trust me when I tell you I did not see all of this when I took the shot. But, I do love this final image very much.

There are two adjustments I did make with the image that made it so much better, thanks to Adobe Lightroom 3. First is a lens distortion correction, a new tool that adjusts any distortion that a particular lens puts in an image. Lightroom knows what camera and lens I used on this image and makes the correction if I request it.

The second correction I made, thanks to another new Lightroom feature, is a vertical distortion correction.  Although these windows look as if I photographed them straight on, they are actually high on the second floor of the building, so the original image looks like I shot up at them. By using a vertical correction tool, I was able to straighten them out to what you see now.

I didn’t mean to give you a Lightroom commercial here…I only wanted to point out some of the neat things you can do with today’s software. And I for one, am glad to have these tools. The digital darkroom has become a place of wonder and excitement.

(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)

To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com.