144. Don Quixote Must Win

‘On a Cross-road’ - Pyrohiv, Ukraine
photo by Valeriy Barishpolets
website - https://www.fotocommunity.com/photographer/valeriy-barishpolets/727570
original image - https://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-pirogovo-image5352296

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This is the outdoor Museum of Folk Architecture and Life of Ukraine. That's near Kyiv. Hopefully it's still standing. They should update it with a few tractors towing tanks, maybe.

A wonderfully spooky photo, but the colors were all over the place, and dirty as hell. And I don't think they were like that in reality. I actually managed to sort them out, but in the end I went for 'day for night' variant. It looks very Tim Burtunesque.

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22. Lightning Makes Me Smile

‘Broken Bus Lightning’ - Ukraine
photo by Denis Bodrov
website - https://35photo.pro/yenik/
original image - https://photographyreel.com/file/image/12-2014/6-photography-landscape-broken-bus-lightning-by-denis-bodrov.jpg

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Denis Bodrov again. He really is good at capturing lightning, but what really makes the photo for me is the smiley graffiti on the bus wreck.

I only sharpened the image a bit, and fixed some sharpening artefacts that were already present.

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11. This Looks Staged

‘Distant Lightning’ - Ukraine
photo by Denis Bodrov
website - https://35photo.pro/yenik/
original image - https://35photo.pro/photos_main/774/3874229.jpg

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But you can't really stage nature, can you? A photo by Denis Bodrov, a Ukrainian photographer, so I guess this is somewhere in Ukraine. He has a specific style - most of his photos are moody pieces shot during nightime, with wonderfully eerie atmosphere.

Cleaned up the photo a bit, raised the contrast - mostly on the cloud - and removed poor Denis (I guess?), because I like the feeling of desolation more.

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