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.

Paris—No 6

MERRY CHRISTMAS from the Patrick Family!

Galaeries Lafayette, Paris, France.

Paris—No 5

 

When people talk about things that are “over the top,” I think of Palace of Versailles, which is about twelve miles outside of Paris and an easy train ride.  

The court of Versailles was the center of political power in France from 1682, when Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in October 1789 after the beginning of the French Revolution.  Versailles is therefore famous not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancient Regime.

According to one of the write-ups within the Versailles, at its high point, to run and maintain this palace, it took about 20% of all the taxes collected by the French government—now that is living in style.

Today’s photo is of the hall of mirrors.  I manually focused my camera about one third of the way into the scene and then held it over my head and clicked away.  My main concern was keeping the camera level.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D800, 28-300mm f/3.5~5.6 at 28mm, ISO 1600, f/8 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.

Paris—No 4

There are certain places in the world that no matter how good cameras get, they will no be able to capture the beauty of the scene. La Sainte-Chapelle is one of those places.

The chapel is located on Ile de la Cite and was the royal chapel for King Louis IX.  The chapel is considered among the greatest Gothic architectures.

Every time I have visited the La Sainte-Chapelle, some part of it has been under restoration; therefore, a photo of the entire chapel would include some not-so-picturesque scaffolding.  In addition, the chapel is dark but because light streaming through the stained glass windows has a high dynamic range of light—again complicating the photo taking process. 

My Paris trip allowed me to use my Nikon D800 much more than I have ever used it.  I was quite surprised and happy with two elements of the camera:  (1) its ability to produce clean photos at much higher ISOs than the Nikon D3x; and (2) a very large dynamic range of the sensor—overall, probably a stop or two more than the Nikon D3.

My post processing included some work in Photoshop CS5 because I wanted to bring out the details and Lighroom would did not produce the results that I wanted.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D800, 28-300mm f/3.5~5.6 at 28mm, ISO 2500, f/3.5 at 1/15^th of a second (braced against some scaffolding).

Post Processing:

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

Photoshop CS5—applied nik Color Efex Pro Detail Extractor and Tonal Contrast filters and sharpened photo using high pass filter method with blending mode set to overlay.

Paris—No 3

 

In my first post, I mentioned that museums were one of my favorite things about Paris.  If you go to Paris, I recommend that you get the museum pass that is for specified number of days and allows you to get into more than 60 different museums in and around Paris.  Great way to see a lot of the museums of Paris.

I do not consider today’s photo as a great photo—it may not even be a good one.  But, it is one that I really like—for some reason!
 The photo was taken inside Musse D’Orsay.  The museum is the home of some of the best Impressionist paintings—probably my favorite school of painting.  Musse D’Orsay building was a terminal for the railways of southwestern France until 1939.  It became obsolete because of longer trains.  The architecture is great.  There are two large clocks that looks-out over the city.  I first thought that I would wait for the people to clear the room but as I stood there, I began to think that the people really added to the scene.  I wished that I could have used flash, but photographs are not allowed within the museum (even though you see everyone taking photos with their point-and-shoots) and I did not want to risk having security kick me out!
I could not decide whether I like this better in color or black and white, so I included both in this post.
Enjoy. 
Camera settings:  Nikon D800, 28-300mm f/3.5~5.6 at 28mm, ISO 320, f/8 at 60^th of a second. 
Post Processing: 
Lightroom 4—applied Standard preset during import, set white and black points, increased shadows and decreased highlights and added vibrance and clarity.

Paris—No 2

We stayed in small hotel in the 6^th Arrondissement.  Our hotel was about three blocks from Jardin du Luxmbourg.  About three doors down from our hotel was Le Timbre, a sixteen-seat restaurant that severs great country French cuisine.   We ate there twice and enjoyed both of the meals.

JD ordered a terrine the second time we ate at Le Timbre.  It was the best terrine that I have ever eaten.  We were seated right next to the kitchen, which was separated from our table by a simple bar.  I told the chef (also the owner) that the terrine was the best that I had ever eaten and would love to have the receipt.
About ten minutes after my request, he placed the receipt on our table.  Of course I thanked him for the receipt but really did not look at it very closely.  I decided to make the terrine for Thanksgiving so when I took it out and began to study it I noticed couple things—first, the receipt was a combination of English and French and second, all the measurements were in Metric/Celsius.  Thanks to JD, the translation was relatively easy and thanks to converters on my iPad, the conversion was also relatively simple.
The terrine?  It came out GREAT!
Enjoy. 
Camera settings:  Nikon D800, 28-300mm f/3.5~5.6 at 62mm, ISO 2200, f/4.8 at 160^th of a second.
Post Processing: 
Lightroom 4—applied Standard preset during import, set white and black points and added vibrance and clarity.

Paris—No 1

 

More-or-less on the spur of the moment, JD and I recently visited Paris for a week.  Before I retired, I would often go to Paris on business but have not been back since I retired.
I love Paris.  There are so many great things there—great food, great wine, wonderful museums, fabulous walking and a certain excitement everywhere you go.
This time, Paris seemed tired.  The people seemed to have lost their great love of life.  They seemed to be just going through the motions.
Today’s photo is of one of Paris' great icons—the Eiffel Tower at sundown taken from the Esplanade du Trocadero. 
Enjoy. 
Camera settings:  Nikon D800, 28-300mm f/3.5~5.6 at 70mm, ISO 1600, f/11 at 1/2 of a seconds on a tripod 
Post Processing: 
Lightroom 4—applied Vivid preset during import, set white and black points and increased overall vibrance and added clarity to the Eiffel Tower using the adjustment brush.