modern interaction © Lilly Schwartz 2012

Yesterday morning I went to Friedrichshain to have a cup of tea with a friend. In fact it was fresh mint tea and it wasn’t as nice as it should have been, although the place where we had it was very nice. It was the hotel Michelberger at Warschauer Straße where my friend was also staying. In the café there are tons of books you can just pick up and browse, and it’s generally a very relaxed and comfortable place. Still, I recommend not drinking the fresh mint tea, it tasted a bit funny. The picture was also taken in the place and the original colour version had nice muted colours. I still thought that through black and white it would gain in atmosphere, so I started trying around with Alien Skin Exposure. I still wanted to keep the muted soft expression and all the standard black and white presets had just way too much contrast in them, while the low contrast ones were too low contrast. In the end I went with the wet plate preset and removed the texture from it. And I have to say, wow, I was just amazed! It was the perfect middle way between contrast and softness and I’m just so happy with the outcome!