Inside this massive head in Nice, France is a library! Actually, it’s the administrative office for the library next door. It’s officially known as La Tête Carrée, but lovingly known as the “blockhead building”.
I’ve been experimenting with textures quite a bit in my photos. I don’t like to just apply effects to my images randomly, as I think that can get a little gimmicky or even tacky. But textures can really add to an image when applied thoughtfully. I’ve used them in a lot of portraits when I’ve wanted to stretch out the background. Stretching the background can help take a simple portrait and make it look more grand, but doing so also leaves some telltale stretching in the pixels, especially when you enlarge the image. Adding a texture is a great way to not only mask the impact of the stretching, but bring attention back to the main subject. With landscapes, I tend to use textures for different reasons. In this case, it was a beautiful day to shoot this building. Almost too beautiful. I thought the blue sky didn’t have enough interest to stand up to the grandeur of this building, and the library itself in the background was somewhat competing for attention – so I added a texture to the image everywhere but over the blockhead itself.