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.