April 2, 2009

Drink Coca-Cola

Not far from Carlsbad Caverns, I stopped at this old country store.  The owner had all sorts of antiques here and there.  I wondered around looking at the various items.  Without a doubt, the porch of one of the buildings with its old signs, coca-cola ice chest and funny little tin was the most interesting place to me.   I tried several shots of the ice box, but really was not happy with what I was getting.  I then decided to deploy my special VAL (Voice Activated Light, which in this case was JD and a Nikon SB800—sorry Steve, but you were not there).  I zoomed the flash head to 105mm and then put a snoot on it.  I wanted the light to hit the ice box.  I underexposed the scene by about 1½ f-stops and set the flash to overexpose by about 1 EV.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, 28-70mm f/2.8 at 35mm, shot at ISO 200, f/6.7 and 1/60th of a second.

Post Processing:

Lightroom:  Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast, clarity and vibrance.

Photoshop:  Added texture using onOne Photoframe.

7 comments:

  1. Nice composition Larry, it has a great old time country feel. Nice job on the lighting, texture, and framing as well. It's a nice "lucky" shot, it reminds me that the harder you work the "luckier" you get!

    ReplyDelete
  2. This looks like a very interesting place. I enjoy stopping at places like this when I travel across country. You did a good job with capturing the spirit of it.
    Debbie

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well done Larry, Nice nostalgic feel. Looks like a cool place to do a model shoot.

    Brian

    ReplyDelete
  4. Cool photo. I like the edge too. Somehow a busy edge with a busy photo seems to work in most cases - funny how that is. And next time I might be able to VAL for you - my per diem is pretty low.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Pure Americana (my favorite subject)!

    Great composition and post-processing!

    Well done!
    Barry

    ReplyDelete
  6. Good image. An every day scene that makes a good photo. Like it.
    Jeff

    ReplyDelete
  7. I love this type photo Larry. It brings back the can't be beat ice cold bottled cokes in the red Coca Cola ice box feeling. It's like "the real thing"!

    I like the edge treatment but would still like to see the straight shot on this one.

    DHaass

    ReplyDelete