January 22, 2009

After the Houston Marathon

After many of the runners had finished, I wondered down to an area know as Alan’s Landing (where Houston started).  I had seen this old building many times but had never really checked it out.  While checking it out, I found these stairs.

Looking at the stairs I was not interested in the form of the stairs but rather the old, scrubby textures of the building and stairs.   I knew that I wanted it to be a black and white, but I needed to bring out the texture that I was seeing.   I used an ole Barry Armer's trick—hand-held HDR.  I took seven shots with the exposures being +3EV to -3EV.  The seven exposures were processed with Photomatix Pro. 

Camera settings:  Nikon D700, 28-70 f/2.8 at 28mm, shot at ISO 200, f/16 and 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250 and 1/500 of a second for the seven exposures with the camera resting.

Post Processing: 

Photomatrix Pro—processed the seven exposures with minimum processing during the tone mapping.

Photoshop—sharpened image using high pass filter in hard light blending mode and converted image to black and white using nik Silver Efex Pro.

4 comments:

  1. Cool shot Patrick!

    To get this photo this sharp with seven exposures you had to have had a very steady hand!

    Well done!
    Barry

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  2. You achieved your goal. Not sure whether I like this one or not. It is somewhat disturbing. Good composition with all the lines leading you to all areas of the photograph.
    Anne

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  3. This is a striking black and white that is very moody. I can see where Anne might think it is disturbing. I think good photographs move you one way or another. This one would probably move most people one in a certain way.
    The Professor

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  4. Excellent photo and very moody. Makes me wonder what insights Marvin would have about it. As photographers we like staircase's in general - something about a journey I suppose. Well done.

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