After Googling the matter for a respectable amount of time, I’ve come to the definitive conclusion that I’m not entirely sure what this structure is. I think it’s the old Navy chapel at Sandy Hook, but I have no evidence to back up this claim. It marks the northern end of the Sandy Hook bike path, in any case.
Edit: it’s apparently the Post Chapel. Thanks, Scott.
August 1, 2007 at 3:17 am
I believe (if I’ve got the building right) its the Post Chapel. Evidentally it is on its way to being restored and turned into an auditorium by a private group along with the Post Theater and Post Headquarters.
Heres a map:
http://www.nps.gov/gate/shu/pdf_files/map_fort_hancock.pdf
and a site layout from 1967 if you don’t like pdfs
http://mapmaker.rutgers.edu/MONMOUTH_COUNTY/FortHancock_1967.jpg
And for some background, heres Rep. Frank Pallone opposite the plan for commercial development of the buildings being favored over home-based educational groups in 2002.
http://independent.gmnews.com/News/2002/0227/Bulletin_Board/031.html
Heres the Sandy Hook Partners, LLC saying their finally going ahead with it 4 years later:
http://www.tworivertimes.com/061507/news3.php
And finally heres Rep. Frank Pallone a few weeks ago saying hes going to report the whole group to the department of the interior over the debacle.
http://www.tworivertimes.com/070607/news3.php
August 1, 2007 at 4:02 am
i had abandoned you for a while…sorry!
raindog got a bit stroppy infact!
tee hee
August 1, 2007 at 12:18 pm
The sky is great – nice shot.
August 1, 2007 at 1:53 pm
nice exposure, josy… and nice composition… i think this is one of your images that would work better as a larger print…
by the way, does gimp have a curves function?…
August 1, 2007 at 4:47 pm
who stroppy? me?
love this one, josy! oh, the grandeur. love the clouds, but especially that bit of light from the window. very nice, quite painterly.
August 3, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Scott- Ahhh. Thank you for all the information and links! I found some information that led me to suspect it might be the Post Chapel, but couldn’t find anything to back this up. Thanks.
Pod- I’ve abandoned you (and everyone else) for a while, too, so don’t feel bad.
Paul- Thanks.
m- Yes, GIMP does have a curves function, but I hate it. It all seems so luck-of-the-draw. You pick a random point on the line, and move it to some random place on the graph, and hope that something good comes of it all.
With regards to the “larger print” suggestion, it is lower resolution, as it was taken with my old digital.
RD- I don’t even know what “stroppy” means, but if Pod says it’s true….
August 3, 2007 at 4:07 pm
it is actually fairly easy to understand… think of it this way… the graph plots the distribution of luminosity* in your image… in photoshop (and therefore, most likely, in gimp), the x axis is the incoming information (the negative)… and the y axis is the outgoing information (the print)**…
so, when you open the function, the line is straight… areas that are dark in the ‘negative’ are dark in the ‘print’, areas that are bright in the ‘negative’ are bright grey in the ‘print’… so, when you change the curve, you are changing how different levels of luminosity are printed…
in this image, the overall tone is good… but, in my opinion, the shadow side of the building could be a bit lighter… and/or have a touch more contrast to make it pop… but, a simple adjustment to the overall contrast (which is goo) might cause problems in the sky… as would lightening the overall image…
this is where curves come in handy (although this could be done with adjustment layers and masks)… you can use a few points to adjust the curve, making the darker parts of the image a bit lighter and a bit more contrasty…
to do that, you start by clicking on a point near the axis… if you move the spot up, you will be making the image lighter… of course, this makes the whole line bulge upward… but you can add another point on the line and bend it back down gently… or, ideally, you can use a couple points to bend the lower third upward gently while leaving the upper two thirds in the same place it was originally…
a couple simple concepts will help to (and they are fairly intuitive)… flatter lines mean less contrast… steeper lines mean more contrast… moving a point upward will lighten the image, while moving a point downward will darken the image…
oh… and one recommendation… fine tune your curve by clicking on the points and using your arrow keys to move it around… it is easier than trying to do small moves with the mouse…
* note: if it helps, think of your color images as being black and white… in this case, luminosity would correspond to the greyscale tone… bright objects would be white (or light grey), objects of average luminosity would be middle grey and black/dark objects would have low luminosity…
** another note: the curve represents the ideal distribution of luminosity in the image, not the distribution of this particular image… that is, the curve is the same whether you’re looking at an image of average luminosity or a photo of the sun across a snowy landscape or a photo of bats in a cave lit by a candle…
August 3, 2007 at 4:09 pm
(laugh)… the overall contrast is ‘good’, not ‘goo’…
August 5, 2007 at 12:51 am
Josy, according to Merriam-Webster, “stroppy” means touchy or belligerent. (Yes, it’s British.)