Paris—No 9

 

This is my last photo from our Paris trip—JD in front of Versailles Palace.  I am posting this photo for two reasons:  (1) to show off my lovely bride of 47 years; and, (2) to show that you can take a pretty darn good photo using the pop-up flash on your camera.
Enjoy. 
Camera settings:  Nikon D800, 28-300mm f/3.5~5.6 at 65mm, ISO 100, f/8 at 1/60^th of a second using pop-up flash on camera 
Post Processing: 
Lightroom 4—applied Portrait preset during import, set white and black points, increased shadows and decreased highlights and added vibrance and clarity.

Paris—No 8

 

I have strong political opinions, however, I try to keep any of them out of this blog.  Why?  Because this blog is about photography, not politics.

Today, I make an exception. 

I got up at my usual time (around 4:30), went to the “Y” to work out, read a number of articles and editorials in the Wall Street Journal and mailed my estimated income taxes.  In short, I am ripe to discuss politics, but since this is a photography blog and I am doing photos from Paris, how do I bridge the gap.

No matter what country you live, no matter whether you are on the right or left, or no matter what your age or sex, I think this statue, more-or-less, captures most peoples views of politicians today.

Enough said!

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D800, 28-300mm f/3.5~5.6 at 65mm, ISO 1,600, f/11 at 1/125^th of a second.

Post Processing:

Lightroom 4—applied Vivid preset during import, cropped image, set white and black points, increased shadows and decreased highlights and added vibrance and clarity.

Paris—No 7a

So many people commented on how the cars and the blue tarp over the building was a real distraction that I decided to have a mulligan on the color version. 
In today’s version, I de-saturated the blue tarp, removed the cars and darkened by burning the area where the cars were.  This was a quick and dirty, so please do not comment on my poor Photoshop work.
Does the B&W version still rule?
Enjoy.

Paris—No 7

Notre Dame is probably my second favorite cathedral in the world.  I have visited it every time I have been in Paris.  There is just something about it that I find amazing.  Yet, even though I have visited it so many times, I had never taken the tour to the top.  If you have never done this and are planning a trip to Paris, I highly recommend it.  But, be prepared to do a little climbing!

One of my very favorite films of all times is the Hunchback of Notre Dame (it’s the 193? Edition).  The story is the same in all the versions but the 193? version has some great scenes at the top of the cathedral that show close-ups of the statues and the Paris cityscape in the background.  The film is in high-contrast, back and white.

Here I tried to duplicate that look.  I wanted a lot of detail in the statues, a little less in the cityscape and then virtually none in the sky. After making basic adjustments in Lightroom 4, I used nik Detail Extractor and Tonal Contrast filters on the image.  I then masked off the effect—50% grey on the cityscape portion and black on the sky—thus, decreasing the effect on those two areas of the photo.

In the black and white version, I increased the contrast and darkened the black point.

Naturally, I prefer the black and white version, but which one do you prefer?

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D800, 28-300mm f/3.5~5.6 at 32mm, ISO 800, f/16 at 1/60^th of a second.

Post Processing:

Lightroom 4—applied Vivid preset during import, set white and black points, increased shadows and decreased highlights and added vibrance and clarity.

Photoshop CS5—see above.