Posted on Dec.14, 2010, under Michigan
(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 300mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/125th sec @ f/5.6)
Just down the road from where I took yesterday’s image is a small cemetery. I’ve always felt odd about photographing in a cemetery, but I do find old headstones to be interesting. I suppose it is somewhat cliché to shoot a cemetery in winter, but with a blustery snowstorm going on around me, it just seemed like the right thing to do! The wind was really nasty and cold so I didn’t spend a lot of time here. I tried various angles and focal lengths and ended up liking this one the best.
I just received my copy of OnOne Software’s Perfect Photo Suite so I was anxious to try out a couple of things. The first thing I did was adjust the crop in Lightroom and darken the blacks somewhat. I then took the shot into Photoshop where I used Silver Efex Pro to do a black and white conversion. I upped the structure and then used the opacity slider to bring back just a bit of color to the image. I liked the color of the headstone and I didn’t want to lose it completely. I also used some edge effects to create a stronger vignette and to burn the edges of the image. I finished the image using Focal Point 2 to increase the blurring surrounding the main headstone a little bit.
(click either image to view in lightbox mode)
Thoughts, comments or questions?
Copyright © 2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.
Susan