Within the Walls

Here's another one from Alcatraz. I'm still not sure how I feel about this one but its looking way better than the original. The original was a pretty feeble attempt at shooting out of a very small window from within the main cell block of the prison. These openings were small and if you were in your cell you wouldn't be able to see out. But if you were out of your cell or you were a guard, you could go up to one of these tiny windows and look out and see freedom and city in the distance. One of the most memorable things on the Alcatraz audio tour was the former inmates talking about how on new years eve they could actually hear the celebrations going on in San Francisco from out in the middle of the bay. I thought that was fascinating so I tried to capture something of a feeling from inside this prison longing to get out.

I made a bunch of adjustments to this image.. some of which I'm still not sure about. Most obvious is the crop and the heavy sloppy border put around the image. I did that to give it an extra gritty and sort of raw feel to it. Another adjustment I made was to the temperature of the colors in this image. I shifted them towards yellow just to personal taste. I wanted the outside of these walls to feel sunny and bright as contrasted with the grime on the window and the darkness surrounding it.