Ila

Years ago, I passed through the very small town of ILA, Georgia (US) — population 345 people — while en-route to another destination. In the middle of the tiny "downtown" area is a row of buildings which I thought was pretty and had potential if the photo was processed in just the right way.

I think I was correct, and here is the pic of this charming little block of buildings:


I used a processing technique which took me a long time to master. It makes the resulting image look slightly like High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography, but it isn't true HDR (so I call it quasi-HDR processing). I have used this technique rather often in photographs of barns, as it helps to being out the details in dark spots rather well.

Just for fun, I will now show you the original shot which I took from the back seat of the car while we were stopped at a traffic light (the only traffic light in town!). As can be seen, I did a lot of painstaking editing to remove power-lines because I thought they distracted from the scene.


I have recently been employing a different technique for processing some of my photos, as can be seen in some of my recent Old Barn Project posts as well as my entry into the recent Tell Me About Where You Live contest. Really, go ahead and click that link, look at the photos, then come back, I will wait... 😁

So, I wondered how the town of Ila would look with the recent processing employed and tried two different twists to the technique. Here is the first:


And here is another edit with a vibrant, more 'electric' effect on the colors:


Which are your favorites? —the original?  —quasi-HDR?  —new technique?  —vibrant?