Texturing

"Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate."

- Bertrand Russell

I didn't take my long lens today ... But I don't think the lorikeet was there. Even if it was, it was grey and rainy, so I'm not fussed. I'll try again.

A while ago I think I mentioned seeing a bloke with a little parakeet and kicking myself for not asking t take his portrait. I saw him again today, and as I told myself I would, I approached him. I opened with a simple, general, "that's a lovely little bird" ... but I don't think he's a very friendly man. At least not to random strangers on the street. Or maybe he doesn't speak English. Or maybe he was simply having a bad day.... I dunno. In any case, suffice it to say I didn't progress to asking for a photo. :-p

So I ended up lacking a photo. This week's challenge theme is "texture", so here's a shot of me texturing the milk for my evening coffee. It was way over-exposed, with the milk totally blown out, so I faffed about with it in Filterstorm until it was a little less awful, and here it is.

Said faffing consisted of: black and white conversion, pulling down the luminance curve, raising the contrast, tone mapping, and warming up the white balance. I think that was it. I still don't like it much, but meh.

So why Bertrand Russell? Because of the photo I wanted a quote containing the word unfortunate (though I could also have gone with "disappointing"), and this was the first I found. It seems very apropos in light of the Occupy protests. - And Bertrand Russell was awesome.

Large version here.

Unprocessed version here.