Physical Graffiti Re-enacted

So once in awhile I like to create ideas for myself, and find things I can do locally in the greater New Jersey / New York area.  I knew for many years that the buildings used in the album cover to Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti were located somewhere in Manhattan - but wasn't sure exactly where - I remember a friend telling me it was St Mark's but wasn't 100%.  A quick Google search revealed the actual location:  96 & 98 St. Mark's Place. 

Well I found the opportunity, headed over listening to the album, got a few shots - and immediately recognized a few challenges - my first was an excited tourist from someplace, pointing to a page of his tour guidebook with one hand, and waving at the building with the other, exclaiming, excitedly, over and over again, 'Beb Bebbelin!  BEB BEBBELIN!  BEB BEBBELIN!'  I nodded, and said, 'Yep....Beb Bebbelin.' 

Don't get me wrong, I was excited too - but even though he saw I was lining up the shot, he proceeded to stand directly in front of my camera for about 5 minutes taking selfies.  If he'd have asked, I would have taken a shot with his camera phone, and send him one of mine.  I decided not to include a photo with him in it, in case his wife ever found this blog post.  Clearly a popular spot, many people came by while I was there to take a shot.  Traffic, lighting, pedestrians, parked cars, selfies - some minimal workarounds.

Second challenge was going to be squaring off this photo - I couldn't get a better elevation, and I am literally up against the wall of the building opposite - so I relied on Lightroom to correct the tilt and gain square.  I tried to shoot with as much elevation included as possible, knowing that I was going to lose quite a bit of real estate once I started in on correction.   The sky was going to be cut anyway, so not a problem there.

The bicycles I decided would need to stay - I couldn't lose the sidewalk, and I couldn't shoot over them. They were interesting anyway, so why not leave them in.  

That shot actually had great potential - really liked the dynamic action, but I ended up using a different one.  Here's a crop of the doorway.

Third task was to make it gritty - like the album cover itself.  To do that, I took multiple shots and created an HDR in Photomatix, which I further processed using Lightroom.  Example here - this shot includes all 5 floors.  

Note the shop on the ground floor - "Physical Graffitea."  Someone was lucky to have scored a photo of Robert Plant standing outside the shop in 2014 - you can find that online.

Fourth challenge was that the buildings were too tall; the album had apparently removed the Fourth floor to make the album cover work for a 12x12 square.  That was a bit tricky - as I was attempting to work out the vertical, horizontal and distortion and work out exactly where to trim to avoid too much of an obvious cut.  I gave it a shot using PhotoStudio.  The fire escapes were key to the alignment.

Fifth challenge, the album cover itself spells out the name of the album with letters on the window shades - I didn't have that luxury, so I used PhotoStudio again to put them in.  This is one of the raw photos I used during the process.

Looked a bit of overkill - not the exact look I was going for as a recreation.   I created multiple layers and blended them down to look more realistic.  I also needed to trim for square and remove part of the facade.  Really an amazing piece of architecture.

Here's the final....hope you like it.

"And if you feel that you can't go on
And your will's sinkin' low
Just believe and you can't go wrong
In the light you will find the road
You will find the road..."

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