Photo Essay:: Urban Beauty

Beauty.  The word summons up images of lovely ladies decked out in finery, fields of flowers, and glorious sunsets–not gritty train tracks, rust stains, old  buildings, and abandoned shopping carts.  Of course, beauty is the eye of the beholder, and since it I’m the one holding the camera, I try to offer the world glimpses of what is beautiful (or interesting) to me.

Last week, I happened upon a mass of abandoned shopping carts in center city Allentown.  I was intrigued by the color, the way the sun reflected off the metal, and the amount of shopping carts housed in this old parking lot. Since  I was cameraless (a rare happening indeed), but went back on Saturday, which was a bright, sunny day to take some photos.  Armed with my snazzy point-and-shoot (Canon PowerShot) instead of my amazinly beautiful Canon DSLR, but I thought the images turned out great anyway.  So here goes.  Click on the photos to see them enlarged.

This is a close-up over top of the shopping carts.  No editing or cropping whatsoever on this image.

Here’s a side view of the carts.  I added a Photoshop effect to the photo to give it a dark, almost hand-drawn effect.

I like the framing and balance of this pic.  It’s one of my faves.

I put a sepia tone on this pic to give the image an antiqued, yet bright feel.  I also used a distortion filter.