Tout En Fête Photo

Photographer’s Note

During our visit to the Lille Culture Capital Of Europe 2004 exhibitions, we visited one of the Roubaix exhibitions in La Piscine. A fast direct subway/tram connection took us there from Lille. After our visit we strolled through the town, enchanted to be in this finish town of the famous cycle classic Paris-Roubaix (a.k.a. De Hel van het Noorden / The Northern Hell – because of the long cobblestone stretches that are encountered).

Walking thru Roubaix e saw that the town has been put thru a very effective piece of urban renewal. But it is still battling the effects of the demise of the heavy industry in the area. Dilapidated warehouse and factories tell their sad tale. Near a few of those dilapidated edifices we found this closed party gadget & costume store.

I was grabbed by the strong contrast of the festive outdoor letters and the neglected & closed façade of this long closed store. It was one of the pics which inspired me to start the new “outdoor type” theme. Looking at it during editing the words “farces & attrapes” took on a new meaning in the present state of the storefront.

PS-E2 tech: skewed, cropped, saturation (master, reds) boosted/altered, USM-ed, frame added and saved for the web.

nwoehnl, jhm, maphoto, Rinie_Hoff, sunny, pamastro has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

Ebbe (9593) 2004-10-29 16:11

Wow, what colors. Probably a bit out of fashion but so is the building too. A nice close up with a geometrical build up of many rectangels. The grid along the bottom forms a row of arrows that points up into the pictures main area.

nwoehnl (120) 2004-10-29 16:31

Hi Bert - well seen motive of the colorful lettering versus the fading façade of the abandoned building. I like the graphical quality that was also pointed out by Ebbe, and it's good you kept a bit of the bars at the bottom. Good choice with the purple frame.

Nice new theme you started, I'll try to find a shot for it.

jiherka (4465) 2004-10-29 17:45

Et Vive la Fête...
If the life would be like this every time and for every body, it will be good.
Your picture is well framed and the text taken into the picture say all.
Well done Bert

jhm (83802) 2004-10-30 5:00

Bert, van een kleur vol beeld gesproken, wel hier is er een, de scherte is fenomenaal, volgens het opstellen van de letters is het blijkbaar altijd feest. De kader in het zelfde kleur als het opschrift geeft blijk van kennis der kleuren Bert. Spijtig dat er niet meer foto's van u verschijnen, het zal de tijd wel wezen! Groeten. John

ma-tibou (4566) 2004-10-31 4:10

Bonjour Bert, de jolie couleurs , pour préparer un moment de joie "la fête" un moment qu'il faut apprécier et dont-il faut profitter.
Amitié/ Martine.

maphoto (8076) 2004-10-31 16:02

Très bon cadrage et élément intéressant, tout en fête...tout en couleurs, accompagné d'une bonne note, bien fait.

Rinie_Hoff (9334) 2004-10-31 16:35

Hi Bert, this is a nice and strong picture of something that is found everywhere, and one of the most important thing for communicating, characters, and in such an order that they make sense. Colours are nice and attractive, and as always, the composition is excellent.
I love you new theme, and I will take a look wehther I can find something. like Norbert. Oh, something's coming up already, but I don't know when I will post it.

sunny (3068) 2004-11-02 10:03

Lovely textures and details with fine hint of graphical mood, Bert! The bright colours bring so much life to it. Love the tight framing as it puts more impact on the hillarious set of letters. Very well seen and captured!

pamastro (7215) 2004-11-04 23:28

Great contrast. So much color and then broken glass and bleak concrete. But even the colors are seeing a bit of fading here. They don't seem as bright as perhaps they once were. These sort of scenes are some of my favorites. They have a strange sort of beauty to them. Perhaps from my seeing so much of this in Detroit. And this one has that kind of atmosphere to it. It sort of has noise from the past that is now a ghostly whisper. Nice work.

I have added a couple photos to the theme. I hope they fit in with it.