There’s an overwhelming amount of information about taking and processing photographs that I do not know, but I am at the point where some  zones of knowledge are within my expertise.  When post-processing, there are certain brushes, sliders and filters that I know pretty well.  For a while I would apply many of them to every photo I processed just to see how they would affect each image, even though I would hit UNDO before trying the next effect and before publishing.  The Bleach Bypass filter in Nik Color Efex is one such filter that I thought I really knew. It is not among my most used “inner circle” of effects, but it is close.  On One Software and the Topaz Detail software have similar filters, but I like the Nik version the best.  I was uncertain how to process this image and thought Bleach Bypass was worth trying.  What is amazing to me is the result was nothing at all like what I envisioned.  Frankly it is a lot better.

I’m still excited from the Worldwide Photo Walk on Saturday, and all the processing, writing, organizing, and commenting I did yesterday.  It was especially fun to shoot so many images without thinking about either HDR or street candids, my two usual areas, and to shoot exclusively with the E-PL1.

This location is the last of the 3 diners I went out to shoot the previous weekend.  If this diner has been open in the last 10-12 years, it has not happened when I drove by.  As I rarely drive Route 17 more than 1-2 times each year, it’s possible, I suppose, that it has opened for some brief intervals.  There are still things left in the diner from the last time it was used or cleaned out.  For example, there’s a somewhat fresh looking pack of cigarettes on the ledge next to the window.  It is located a good 40-45 minutes past the first two when driving west, in between Hancock and Deposit.  Like the others, it is on the westbound side of Route 17.  The area is less dense and less traveled, so you can actually enter Route 17 in either direction by crossing the road without any traffic signals.  I found one public listing for the place, which did have a phone number, suggesting it has been open sometime recently.  I doubt somebody created an online listing for this joint back in the mid-90s.  And that’s about all I know.  Places like this are both filled with mystery and extraordinarily mundane.