Session two of our Town and Country photo class was this evening. Most of our class gathered at Diane Hopkins-Hughs studio to critique the photos we took on the “town” portion of our walk in downtown Greenville.
We were to select our five best shots and print them. I gamely jumped in and printed my five favorites on 13X19 matte paper before receiving and e-mail from Diane saying that we were to print 4X6 images. Oh well, I brought the big images anyway, but I had some 8X10’s printed on my laser printer with the EXIF data just in case. Turns out the large prints worked well.
Every time I go on one of these walks it’s interesting to look at the different viewpoints. There were some duplication of shots, but more often each of us would bring a different interpretation to the scene. There were several excellent shots that my classmates had taken. Very few of them had done much post-processing. I was the only one with access to Photoshop and HDR software. However, the images still looked good.
I tried to select photos that spanned the extent of the walk, from beginning to end. Each one also represented a different compositional style or technique. Here they are, with a brief description of each…
The top of St. George’s Greek Orthodox Church was backlit when we started. I zoomed in very close (200 mm) to catch the domes. Since the lighting was not ideal, I processed the image in black and white using ReDynamix in Photoshop. My classmates liked the vignetting effect from the ReDynamix processing.
On one of our recent photowalks with my Flickr friends I had learned how to do panning, so I decided to try it on this walk. I set my camera for autofocus sensor mode (AF-S). Since it was mid-day, I stopped the lens ‘way down, to f/29, to slow down the shot. The result is that the trolley is fairly sharp while the background is blurred.
This was one place where everyone brought a different interpretation to the scene. One shot the fountain through the back of a cast iron chair, making the fountain look more like a waterfall behind a fence. Others shot the fountain straight on.
I liked the contrast between textures – the rust versus the water droplets. I focused on just that portion, then tweaked the image in Photoshop to bring out those textures.
Piazzo Bergamo Chairs
Diane had suggested that we climb the stairs for different perspective of the plaza. Several of us did, and we all wound up with some similar photos. I was struck by the repeating patterns in this view. I did three bracketed shots and combined these in Photomatix. I also cropped out the top portion to remove distracting elements and focus on the repeating patterns.
Working with Color
There is a new inside mini-golf place on Chicora Alley just behind RiverPlace. Rick Forest is a locally known muralist who was painting a sign for the mini-golf place when our class came by. Rick has done many murals around town, including the ones in the Linky Stone Park just north of the Peace Center on the Reedy River.
Rick’s colorful attire and his whimsical pose caught my attention, especially contrasted against the white background. I set the white level clipping fairly high so that the whites were a bit brighter, then punched up the colors just a touch.
Our next and final outing will be May 16, where we embark on the “country” park of the class. Our destination is still a mystery, but it’s supposed to involve wildflowers and at least one waterfall. If I can get as many good photos as I did on this latest photowalk, then it will be considered worthwhile.