autofantasia's photos with the keyword: wrench

You don't need to have spent a great deal of time browsing my photostream to know I'm daft about cars, especially when you see my username. The fascination really kicked off in the late Seventies when I bought the first ever issue of 'Street Machine' magazine, which was all about the hot rod and custom scene here in the UK. Ever since that day I've dreamt of having my own custom car or hot rod and for a while I hoped I might even become a mechanic, which would have made that dream easier to achieve. Sadly, I've never been able to afford to buy that hot rod and I never did get the opportunity to become a mechanic. These days the closest I get to achieving either dream is working on my old Scirocco, but it's far from being a hot rod and my mechanical skills fall far short of what I'd like them to be. Still, what is they say ... when life gives you lemons, make lemonade! I took this photo for the latest Sunday Challenge which had the theme Tools of the Trade ... using manual focus . I found this week particularly challenging as being a short-sighted spectacle wearer I nearly always have to rely on the automatic focussing capabilities of my Nikon D90. Although there is a dial on it which you can set to allow for eyesight deficiencies, I'm afraid the adjustments are only minor and not sufficient to compensate for my own shortcomings in that area. So for this challenge I had to use the live View screen mode, which meant I could supposedly wear my glasses and focus the image as seen on the screen instead of through the viewfinder. However, I have to say I still found this rather difficult and had to discard lots of shots, but I'm fairly happy with this one. I resisted the temptation to do any sharpening or clarifying in PP as I thought that would kind of defeat the object of the exercise. All I really did in the way of processing was to tweak the Brightness/Contrast levels, before converting it to Black & White and then resizing it for uploading.

Since visiting the water tower located at Lovesome Hill for a recent shoot, I've discovered that it actually features in a track by Rebekah Findlay: a singer songwriter based in North Yorkshire. The song, not surprisinly, is entitled "Lovesome Hill" and appears on her second album "Improvising Around The Sun". It's a rather sinister tale, which apparently takes its inspiration from a rumour that a murderer did actually live at Lovesome Hill for many years before being caught. I don't know how true this is, but he was apparently known as 'The Mechanic' and it's also claimed his ghost can often be seen stood by or even atop the tower. Not sure I'll go back up there again! Now, if I've not scared you off with that tale and you want to know more ... This creation was produced for The Sunday Challenge and published on 26 October to try and satisfy the theme of Spooky/Halloween . www.ipernity.com/group/305069 Apparently, when Rebekah was recording her first album she would pass this place every time on the way to the studio. The actual song "Lovesome Hill" was written behind the steering wheel developing over a few months of journeys back and forth. www.rebekahfindlay.co.uk The main image of the tower as seen in the shot was taken by me. However, I deleted the grey sky, which surrounded it that day as I wanted something a little more dramatic. I also flipped the tower horizontally and repositioned it somewhat to give me a little more space above. Here's the original image pretty much as it came out the camera. The only changes being that I've resized it and added my watermark and a fine line border. www.ipernity.com/doc/autofantasia/35625607 The lightning background I've used to gve the scene a sense of drama was taken by Mathias Krumbholz. Entitled "Thunderstorm near Pritzerbe (Germany)" it needs to be attributed as: "Lightning Pritzerbe 01 (MK)" by Mathias Krumbholz - Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lightning_Pritzerbe_01_(MK).jpg#mediaviewer/File:Lightning_Pritzerbe_01_(MK).jpg You can see more of his work by following the link below: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photos_by_Leviathan1983 Finally, the rain texture was developed by me from an image I found online entitled "misc rain element png by dbszabo1". Check it out here ... dbszabo1.deviantart.com/art/misc-rain-element-png-309954950 I took his original work and produced a new image using several copies of it merged together, but smaller in size and with another layer produced going in the other direction to give the effect of a blustery night. And there you go, that's how it was done. What's that you say, what about 'The Mechanic' ... well all I can say is he wasn't on the shot when I uploaded it!