Redoux, If Only Life Was So Simple

For the last 52Frames photography challenge of 2015, we were offered the chance to recreate a previous photo from the fifty-one 51 we had submitted this year. In real life we don't get these opportunities. We can't take back words or substitute a bad outfit after the event etc. And I'm sure I'm not the only member of this group to wish I had been given another chance to submit a photo after the album was already published.

This was the chance!

I didn't really like the final result of my "Abandoned" photo, and since it was taken in my neighborhood, I took this opportunity to revisit the scene.

Here's the original photo I had submitted:

"Benched Bench"
I don't live in Jerusalem and have no idea of how this uncomfortable crooked bench ended up in my neighborhood. It looks pitiful and is certainly abandoned. I've never seen anyone sit in it either. It has obviously been rejected, sent off the field, benched, the Benched Bench.

And here's the new one from the What I've learned Album:

"Abandoned Bench Redoux"
I was never completely happy with "Benched Bench."  There was something too harsh in the black and white. So since it's in the neighborhood, I went out and photographed it again. This time it was late afternoon, with long shadows, and I processed it differently. Using IrfanView I kept reducing colors until I got to the minimum, 5, before there would only be black, grey and white. It looks so perfectly abandoned and dusty, just right.

What do you think?