I used to think of people as distractions to the landscape. Then I progressed to the point of valuing them as scale objects. There is nothing like a person near a redwood tree to show how big the tree is. Now I’m moving to the stage of believing that humans can actually add interest to scene. Maybe I’m not quite there yet, but I’m open to the idea. A case in point was a tourist who climbed out on a rock near Spanish Bay, Monterey, California and waved to her companions.

The original image I captured is:

It seems like the kind of image that somebody could make into something. Pictures shot so directly into the sun are dramatic, but a silhouette adds interest. In Photoshop™ I first tried the Enhance > Auto Levels hoping it would provide a subtle improvement in contrast in the dark areas. Not so much, but it did impart a purple cast to the rock. Okay, we are going for art here, so I kept the purple.

Next step was to use the Topaz Labs Simplify 2 software filter in Photoshop. The Buzz Sim (I don’t know why it is called that … maybe it was the name of the programmer) option produced:

A larger version is here.

The woman is no recognizable, so a model release is not required. That’s a good reason to keep to unrecognizable images. Hmmm.

It isn’t quite art but it’s interesting. Kind of interesting.