Peephole

I started out shooting in manual mode, and two months later, I still haven't really ventured away from that. I can see the allure of Aperture priority mode, and I've played with it a couple of times, but I get nervous about letting the camera decide the shutter speed for me. I tend to be a bit careless sometimes, and I may not notice if the camera has selected a ridiculous shutter speed for me. Like maybe 1/5 due to low light. What if I take a photo without noticing? Disaster! Silly, I guess, but I'm still very much a beginner.

I have a plan. From now on I will try not to "cheat" and will force myself to use at least one photo taken on the actual day. If they are all terrible, I will have to find a way to post process or change at least one artistically to make the best out of a bad situation. I hope that this will hone my "artistic eye" and improve my post processing skillz (see how clever that was, using that "z" to imply that I have no skills).

On to today's attempt. I tried once again to get that photo of the peephole from the inside, and the photo of what the camera could see outside. I took two photos: one focusing on the peephole on the door, and the other focusing on the view through the peephole. I combined the two in photoshop, and masked out the unwanted areas. Here's the result:

 

Yeah, it's really in need of a clean. But I like the way it looks like you're going back in time when looking through that peephole. The photo through the peephole was taken at high ISO (1600) ,  combined with the dimness and the uncleaned peephole lens, and it adds an old grainy effect. The vignetting due to the lens was unintentional, but I feel that it fits in with the old-timey feel.

Here it is again, this time in black and white. I used the channel mixer and desaturation.