Posted on Apr.18, 2011, under Detroit

(Olympus E-3 14-54mm at 46mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, Exposure 1/500 sec @f/3.4)

One of the coolest and most depressing buildings in Detroit has to be the old Michigan Central Station (Depot). The station was used by Amtrak until 1988 when it was abandoned and left to basically rot. The station consists of the main railway facilities as well as an 18 story office tower. The interesting thing about the office tower is that the top floors were never finished. Anyway, the building has been decaying for years and has been threatened with demolition many times. A group called Save Michigan Central was formed in an effort to save at least part of the building. Latest news reports indicate that the building’s owner might be willing to put a little money into it to keep it from decaying further. Hopefully one day the building won’t need to be surrounded by the razor wire fence.

I did a couple of things when processing this image. The first was to create a square crop. I thought the curve of the razor wire worked better in a squarer frame. I then did a conversion to black & white using Silver Efex Pro 2. I bumped the structure and contrast to help bring out the razor wire. I then used a couple of HDR effects from Photo Tools to create the blueish cast which helped bring the razor wire forward somewhat. My only regret about this image is that it isn’t just a bit sharper. I blame my technique.

Please leave your comments and/or questions below. Thanks!

Copyright © 2010-2011 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.

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