Wanderlust is a wonderful word. It perfectly expresses my love of travel photography. It’s one big adventure. You never know who you will meet, what you will experience or what you will see.

Some locations have been widely photographed, however, and in those locations I shoot the standard image and then try to put my own stamp on the photograph. Sometimes I will find an unusual angle or lighting, and sometimes I will make the image unique in post-production.

This image of the main cathedral in Florence is a prime example of post-production. The warm sepia tones from evening light reminded me of an old photo, so I decided to carry it further. I duplicated the background layer and added Noise, found under Filters in Photoshop. I then duplicated the background layer again, dragged it to the top of the Layers pile and used Blur-Gaussian Blur under the Filters. To achieve the effect, I merely had to move the Opacity slider for the blurred layer to the left, reducing the blur affect, until the image looked the way you see it here. The amount of noise and blur you use has a lot to do with the original resolution of the image. Experiment and you will find the correct balance.

Variations on this technique can give you grainy sepia toned images and photographs that look hand-tinted, if you de-saturate them. Pull out those old familiar images and rework them for different effects. It’s like traveling to that location all over again.