Cropping For A New Look

For the second portion of our class assignment, I decided to give this photo a makeover. It was taken as I was traveling on a guided tour bus to the Ganden Sumtseling Monastery last summer.

The original photo and the subject is not defined.

In China there is a place called Shangri-La, in the northwest of Yunnan province (southern part of China.) Zhongdian County was renamed Shangri-La County in 2001 by Chinese authorities after the fictional land of Shangri-La in the novel “Lost Horizon.” Previously the county was called Zhongdian, among Chinese, and Gyalthang, among Tibetans. The capital of the county is also known as Shangri-La, before 2001 it was named Jiantang Town.

The myth of Shangri-La was born in 1921 with the novel by James Hilton “Lost Horizon.” In his book, Hilton describes a paradisiacal place in the foothills of the Himalayas isolated from the outside world where people lived a harmonious and happy life.

I was able to make several adjustments in Picasa 3 which allowed me to focus more on the subject. However, I am not sure how to remove the rain drops from the windshield of the bus? My personal opinion is this photo does not warrant saving. The composition is weak and no matter how hard I tried to enhance it using Picasa 3 - for me; it still is an undesireable photo.

Nevertheless, this assisgment taught me how to crop and change the dynamics of a scene by adding an array of colors. I will continue to practice using this software which allows me to edit, organize, and share pictures over the Web.