When the Sky Gives you Blah

emu-flats-schoolhouse-abandoned-colour

Last week I had an opportunity to go out my friend Christine Wilson to take some photos north of Melbourne.  It was going to be a great trip and we were going to see some amazing things, and, of course, take photos.  Well we did see some amazing things, but the sky, well the sky was just horrible.  It was a white sky and really wasn’t good for photography. So what do you do “When the Sky Gives you Blah”.

We headed out past Romsey and Lancefield, making note that we will have to go back there.  then we headed to Emu Flat, a place that seems to be only an old church and an abandoned school.  We could walk around the church, but we had to content ourselves with photographing the school from the other side of the fence. There were two sides, but also trees to contend with.  It wasn’t ideal, but with signs everywhere saying trespassers will be prosecuted, well I didn’t want to take the risk and neither did Christine.

emu-flats-schoolhouse-abandoned-raw

So this is basically the raw image I got.  You can see I was quite a distance, couldn’t get any closer on this side.  You can also see the sky and how terrible it was.  It was so disappointing.

I have all these photos of this place and if I want to process them I am going to have to replace the sky in nearly all of them.  So that is what I did for this one, following a new tutorial I found.

emu-flats-schoolhouse-abandoned-colour

I put a much cloudier sky in the image.  I have done quite a few other things to this as well, besides just the sky.  I did convert it to black and white, and then I converted it back to colour after I had changed things.  I sort of like the saturated feel to it.  I think the sky replacement was a good idea, and though harder because of all the trees, was worth the extra effort.

I am going to post the black and white version on my other blog, and you will be able to see it on my Quiet Thursdays post, I will add the link as soon as I post it.

Just need to remind people that you can comment on this post, and while it doesn’t look like anything happens when you do, it does.  I get all the comments, though it can take me some time to approve and respond to them yet.  I don’t know why this blog is so weird to leave comments on.  I will have to get onto the developers and see what they can work out.

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19 Comments

  1. This is lovely, you can find this old house in the back hills of Georgia, Alabama, any of the southern states here in the U.S. They are run down and beautiful with a million stories inside those walls. great pics.

    1. It is lovely, though this was a school house, we have them dotted all over the place too, though many have been moved now and people have them as extra rooms, or sheds. Thank you.

  2. Leanne, you are a master! I was going to say you are a mistress but that has a less than savory connotation to it! This image with the saturation and the highlights and the clouds is pretty darn close to perfect. What could only make it better would be if I could take credit for it! 🙂

    1. I don’t know about that Emilio, but thanks you. Oh yes, mistress, I think you are right there. I love that, I had to tell my husband what you said about the credit. Thanks again, made my day. 😀

  3. lovely Leanne .. I watched your video the other day on how to change the sky. So good. I just wish I had more confidence with PS.

    1. We will have to work on that confidence Julie, though it is all about building up to things, it took me a while before I was confident doing it. Do you have lightroom?
      Thank you.

  4. I am really glad you showed this because I thought you could only replace the sky with buildings. I’m blown away you did this with trees.

    I love the saturation too.

    1. No, you can replace them with trees, but it is much harder, I’m only just starting to see the possibilities here. Thank you Nicci.

  5. What you did is amazing. The second image reminds me of a writing prompt. You give the setting a personality and it makes me want to write a story. 😉

    1. Maybe you should then Cynthia, thank you, I do like it when images give people that kind of inspiration. Let me know what you come up.

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