Combine Chute

Ken and I visited Pioneer Acres, after stopping at an abandoned farm. The sky was cloudless and finding images that showed any subtlety was challenging. Why I bent over and peered into the opening of a chute of an old combine I can't explain, but in the shade was this lovely rust and patina composition.

I tried photographing it from a few feet away with the 120 on the Pentax 645Z but apart from having to shade the lens, the shape didn't work. I switched to the 35 mm. which fortunately has a close focus distance and put the camera almost into the chute opening. I stopped down to f22 and accepted that the edges would be out of focus.

In one way, the image is a big cheat. That funny red shape at the top of the image is in fact a flap valve, with grass and sunlight and red. I just wasn't happy with it. I tried blurring it but it just looked blurred - very fake.

Out of curiosity I wondered what Photoshop would make of it if I hugely enlarged the healing brush to the same diameter as the flap and a tad more, and the result was this very attractive shape and colour which I think works very well with the rest of the image which is pretty straight.

Should I have taken it this far - well, I'm really pleased with the result and let's face it, peering up chutes sounds like something for a proctologist, not a photographer - so if it's been altered a tad, well, who's to challenge me.