High rise surprises

I've been working further from an image posted last year at the very beginning of explorations for Inhabit, Brunel Broderers' exhibition in Stroud later this year. During a visit to Sydney, Australia, a few years ago, I saw and photographed this striking high rise building a few years ago just behind Darling Harbour as I passed by on the top deck of a bus. 

Despite a relatively fleeting impression, this image has remained with me and is providing endless hours of visual challenge as I experiment with the structure, reflections and colour within. It seems to be offering me particularly fruitful opportunities to produce abstract images in Adobe Photoshop Elements for our new theme of Inhabit. 

Some recent manipulations are shown here. Other variaions in colour and effects can be found on my Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/charlton_stitcher/ 

In this process, 'What if?' has never been easier. I find it liberating. A large range of different solutions can be generated rapidly on screen at the click of a mouse - and no expensive paper, paint or fabric has been consumed in the process! 

Then there is always the possibility of the unexpected - and also of a happy accident - which intrigues me. 

Above is a happy accident, obtained when I selected and then cut and deleted elements using the layer by cut function in Photoshop Elements. Those fine black lines and the enclosed white areas are the 'ghostlike' remains which are left behind by the editing process when I remove parts of an image. It is a trick I came upon completely by accident when I was working on this version of an image. I've since employed it deliberately in other images - and it's definitely one I've since added to my armoury.

When I work in the way I've described, working repeatedlly into an image, changing colour, selecting, cutting and pasting, and then overlaying small sections of the original to make a new whole, it always surprises me just how far removed from the original image I become (and how quickly) as I try to represent a story. 

This and the lack of ability to predict the final outcome at the start are what fascinate me in the process and keep it fresh for me.