In this case, the picture has a story. Just over twenty years ago I was walking with a friend along the Embankment past Cleopatra’s Needle. This obelisk is flanked by two bronze replicas of the Sphinx of Giza. Under the neon streetlights the verdigris coloured bronze glowed golden yellow. It was a clear night and there was a full moon. This was a picture worth taking. However, limited by the focal length of my lens (35mm) I had to place the camera on a mini tripod on the pavement and much to the bemusement of passers-by, lay down on the ground to frame the shot. What I got, considering, wasn’t that bad. The sphinx was unfortunately distorted by the upwards angle of the camera and the full moon was nothing more than a bright pin-prick of white in the dark sky. This was an object lesson between what the eye sees and what film will record.
Twenty years later; armed with a digital camera and a computer with imaging software back at home, I had another go. This time, I wasn’t concerned about the lighting. I took the picture on a grey November afternoon. Once back on the computer, I deleted the South Bank in the background and created an empty sky in Photoshop Elements. I altered the verdigris green using hues to a golden colour and dropped in some clip-art to complete the image. The picture below is the one I saw in my mind that January evening twenty years ago.
That is a truly awesome picture!