Everywhere you look

I have always thought that art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. And therefore it can be found all around us: water lilies on a pond, a café at night in Arles, France, a girl with a pearl earring.  I often try to create a pleasing, artistic image from the simplest of subjects.  Sometimes it works, sometimes not.  But I really like the challenge and sometimes the results.

Dockside (Bollard)

This image is from a trip my wife, Michele, and I took to New England about a year ago.  I went out on the docks of Portland, Maine, one foggy morning and just started shooting things with an eye for elements, structure and composition.  I believe that using these three design notions are what make a simple picture into an interesting image.  Here I also did a bit of cloning to simplify the image, as well as Nik software's HDR Efex Pro filter, which I made adjustments by hand and eye, of course.