A couple weeks ago, I went down to Galveston to check out the location that Steve and Charlie took their photographs for our assignment, "Old Galveston." No, I did not go there to try my hand at their shots. I wanted to see, first hand, what was actually there. After seeing what both of them had to work with, I am even more impressed with their photographs. Both Steve and Charlie did an outstanding job with their images. Congratulations, guys.
After checking out the door and front porch from Charlie's photograph, I wondered around to the side of the house where I found these steps and door with shutters. Two things struck me about what I was seeing. First the two different, but complementary, color schemes I saw. Blue and grey in the shutters and reds and greens on the stairs. Second, how the whole scene was a lot of rectangles, small ones at the top of the image and large ones at the bottom. Since there was a fence in front of the steps, I had to shoot between two iron rods and use the fence as my tripod. I did not get the exact angle I wanted, but, it was close enough to show what I wanted.
I wanted all the details to come-out in my final image, I shot seven exposures and combined them in Photomatix as a HDR image. In the tone mapping, I "pushed" the contrast somewhat, since that was what I really wanted. I thought that this would make a good black and white, but, I wanted my final image to really emphasize the two differences that I noted.
Camera Settings: Nikon D3, 28-70 f/2.8, ISO 200, aperture priority, f/16, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, and 1/250 of a second.
Post Processing: Photoshop--used nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast to bring out the details of both the top and bottom portions of the photograph.
Let me know what you think.
In a way you have two separate photos in one. I like the differences between the top and bottom. I wished you had gotten closer to the bottom steps and used a very wide lens. I believe that perspective would have added a little extra. Also, you might have pushed the texture aspects of this one a little too much.
ReplyDeleteAnne
I just do not get this one. It is a photo of some steps and some shutters. They are different colors. I need some education, I guess.
ReplyDeleteTed
For some reason I like this one. It seems to be about something that I know and like. You did a good job with the colors. I am with Anne you might have pushed the contrast a little too much
ReplyDeleteDebbie
I like this one a lot. You took a simple two element scene and made it into a photograph of the conversions of two ideas. Although there is a clear delineation of the two parts, they work extremely well together to give you an interesting scene. Not sure I agree with Anne about you pushing it too much. Need to see this in a large print before I could decide whether you pushed too much. Even if you did push too much, I think a blog is where you need to do that. Stretch yourself in new ways and with new techniques and see what people think. That, to me, is the purpose of a photo blog.
ReplyDeleteThe Professor
I agree with Ted, I do not like this one much. It seems like you are trying to make a photo of something that is not very interesting. Its some shutter and steps. Thats it.
ReplyDeleteMK
cool shot, i got my own shot of this house(shutters open)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/sabotai/3184300836/