Here's a 2006 photo that shows the Église Saint-Ouen in its "urban context" — took it from the high hills southeast of the city, in an area called La Corniche (meaning "cliff" or "ledge"). I've "edited" or "post-processed" it in Photoshop to make it better, I think, than the version that came straight out of the camera.
Here's another version of the same photo that I processed more more aggressively in Photoshop. I cropped it differently, before deciding that that strip of sky didn't "add much value". This version isn't bad, in my opinion, but it looks less like Rouen, where the sun can shine brightly but doesn't do so all that often. More often it foggy and misty there, sometimes with a pluie fine falling. You might call that kind of rain "heavy drizzle".
Finally, here's what the camera saw. The focus is definitely softer and the tones are bluer or at least grayer. It's up to you to decide which view you prefer. Maybe this last one is the most authentic after all. You can enlarge them to see more details. The camera, by the way, was a Canon PowerShot s70 that I bought in 2005 and that fit easily into a coat pocket.
fbThe development, in # 1 and 3 is all you see. Cropping it is a real improvement. Photo #2 is artificial, but that’s the only way you can really distinguish the details of Saint-Ouen and Saint-Maclou on the left of it. Photoshop is a great tool that let you salvage photos that, for one reason or another, are of a lesser quality. For all these reasons, I vote for #2!
ReplyDeleteAs I said, the photos with no sky but those "modern" buildings in the foreground show the church in its urban context. There's no reason to pretend that such buildings exist. Othewise, people are just starry-eyed about what France will be like when they visit, and then they are disappointed. I knew (virtually, on the internet), a woman who came to France to spend a week or two in Paris. She rented an apartment near the Eiffel Tower, toward but not exactly in the section called the Front de Seine. She was outdone because, she said, it was a busy and noisy neighborhood. She said she had thought it would be more "bucolic" — as if any of Paris is bucolic...
DeleteI don’t understand then what you mean by “contexte urbain”. How far do you have to go from a given spot to have “contexte”? IMHO, photos #1 and 3 are more a view of Rouen, development included, than anything else.
DeleteIt just means what the nature of the surroundings of the building you're talking about is. Saint-Ouen is not out in open country, the way I remember that, for example, Notre-Dame de l'Epine was in a very rural setting. The population of the village was 650. The population of the area fairly close to Saint-Ouen in Rouen is 100,000. L'Épine is almost 99% agricultural. The superficie of the village is 30 km². Rouen covers a superficie of a little less than 22 km², with 600 or 700 hundred times as many people on that amount of land.
DeleteI do agree completely with you. The comparaison with N-D de l’Épine is perfect. But here, I really don’t see what the development, which is ugly, adds to your “contexte”. Photo #2 gives exactly that impression that St-Ouen is in an urban and not rural setting. This development may, one day, have the same fate as that enormous development, was it in Missouri?
DeleteIt's not "my" context. It's what you see if you open your eyes.
DeleteThat's amazing work with Photoshop, Ken.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy the post-processing process.
DeleteLa Corniche must be quite high, that's quite and elevated view. I never knew what "corniche" meant, so thanks. There's a Grande Corniche road that leads to Monaco. Fearing heights, I'd take the coastal route.
ReplyDelete