The Alley....or....Haven

Running dialogue....SkiMe's challenge for the day (sorry I am rubbish at putting in a link)
 Jen told me that she was challenged by SkiMe's MM last week so I thought I would give it a burl today.

I took my little camera with me today....I didn't want to leave my other one in the car whilst I was at my Aqua aerobics class.

I have been wanting to take a pic of this alley for ages but never really got around to it...especially as there were other things that pull me rather than street photography.
I did check out the groovy old Chevvy truck that is always parked around the back of the shops by the other graffitti'd wall but there was too much obstructing its beauty...some things you can shoot around...garbage bins and ugly vans just don't do it for me.

There were several things that was important for me to have in this shot.
1. The eye on the wall with the pupil being an Image of the mountain Wollumbin (the towns mountain).

2. The graceful unobstructed curve of the  stained glass lamps.

3. The Haven sign at the end (not that you can see it really well without going large but I know its there).

I waited for the blokes to be almost at communication space apart and reeled off several shots.....oppps...shot at F6.3 instead of F8.

For me the PP is almost as important as the shot..........I tried several crops until I found the almost intimate feel that I usually like to capture in my pics ...dodged ...burned....silver efex...fiddled around for a while until I felt the image found its place. I like dark contrasts but I felt that the detail was needed in this....so I pushed it as far as I could (for the arty farty look) being careful not to loose anything to black or blow anything out too much.

I don't know if I did this right....but there you go....Im just amazed I remembered.

Thank you SkiMe for hosting.