The grandparents of one of my very close friends, Jerry, owned this farmhouse. The house was a wonderful place to be, especially during Christmas—the smells, the decorations, the spirit were just plain wonderful. Jerry’s grandparents made everyone feel like they were truly special. They died shortly after I left for college in 1962. The family has been fighting over their will ever since.
The house tells the rest of the story.
Have a Merry Christmas and remember to hug everyone in your family during the holidays!
Camera settings: Nikon D3, 28-70mm f/2.8 at 28mm, shot at ISO 200, f/5.6 and 1/180 of a second (about 1½ stop under-exposed) on a tripod with two Nikon SB800 strobes on each side of the house set to ¼ power to light only the house
Post Processing:
Lightroom—set white and black point, and added mid-tone contrast.
Photoshop—de-saturated colors of sky using hue-saturation layer, used nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast filter to add significant contrast to highlights, mid-tones and shadows (masked sky off so it would not get the added contrast), used nik color Efex Pro old photo filter on house to provide it a little washed out look on a layer at 20% opacity, added vignette layer in hard light mode and painted with brush set at 5% opacity until I got the look I wanted.
Cool shot Patrick!
ReplyDeleteI really like the composition, color and post-processing. I'm intrigued by the two different areas of the photograph and how they relate to each other; the vivid colors and fine detail of the foregroud and house versus the darker flatter tones of the sky. There is a lot to see in the photo and it all works together very well!
Well done!
Barry
Good photo. Great message.
ReplyDeleteAnne
It's another great photo. I particularly like the contribution of the orange elements, but my favorite part is the back-story. I'm pretty sure theres a valuable moral lesson here! :)
ReplyDeleteVery cool image Larry. I love the processing.
ReplyDeleteI never have understood what drives people in situations like this. Everyone is really in the same boat, holding on to the lives and memories in their own way and loosing sight of what is really important in the process.
What a shame that a place of such love and joy has been left to mirror what those involved must feel like on the inside.
Thanks for sharing and reminding everyone of what is really important in life.
Have a great Christmas!
I looked at this photo yesterday but wanted a day to think about it. You have captured the story very well. The viewer may not know about the family fight but they can understand that this was once a beautiful house and someone has let it go to ruin. That is a very powerful story.
ReplyDeleteThe Professor
It is terrible that a family could let something like this happen. Thank you for bringing the message to me.
ReplyDeleteDebbie