Saturday, February 24, 2007

Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest

While in Virginia this past summer we visited Thomas Jefferson's summer home - Poplar Forest. Of course I took tons of pictures (though we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the home!). Unfortunately the sky was a little bland on many of them. But, I have a file of skies on hand for just such occasions!

Before pictures:



I cut the sky out, slid the new sky underneath and combined the two pictures. And voila!
This is the final result:



Okay, so it's a bit more complicated than that. LOL. But that's the general idea. :)

2 comments:

Martha said...

It looks nice but I'd feel like I was cheating or something.

Shelly said...

LOL. You aren't alone Martha! There are huge debates over this very topic... My opinion... It depends on what you are using the photo for. Is it art? Or is it 'news'? If it's art, then I see nothing wrong with it. It's like painting a landscape and enhancing the sky or leaving something out or maybe adding a little something - like an eagle atop a cliff. But if you are using the photo for NEWS - well that's like 'altering history' and I would say a definite no-no. I guess this photo doesn't really fall into either catagory... But for this picture - well, we just happened to go on a day when the sky was rather blah... but on another day it could easily have had a beautiful blue sky with puffy white clouds. So why not add a nice sky to it? You could also liken it to make-up. We wear make up to add color and beauty - to enhance certain features and to hide others. :)

I do like the ability to alter my photos - however it does have it's drawbacks. You never know what is 'real' anymore! And it's gotten to the point where everything has to be perfect. Telephone wires, for example, are freqently cloned out of a photo cuz they don't look pretty. I get rid of skin blemishes on people and they love me for it. LOL.