This is another bracketed shot of five exposures processed in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and Aperture 3. By using five exposures I was able to capture both the exterior detail of the brick and stonework and the barrel inside the building. I returned the tone mapped image to Aperture 3 where I cropped and straightened it as well as adjusted the sharpness, vibrancy and exposure slightly.
The blacks you see are a mold that forms on everything around a distillery. It is nurtured by the evaporation of the alcohol as it ages in the barrels. The distillery folks refer to the evaporation as the “Angels Share” which probably has it’s roots in the religious beliefs of the Scots, Irish and Welsh people who brought the distillation of whisky to Kentucky in the 18th century as America pushed westward from the coastal settlements.
The image is a symmetrical composition because the window is centered in the frame while within the window the barrel on the left side of the opening shifts the viewer’s eye and adds movement to the photo.
I love shooting old buildings and so I like this a lot. The symmetry works well here, Nick. To my eye the image looks slightly soft. Was that intended? Great job on the color processing. And thanks for the history!
Thank you for the comments. I’m a little bothered by the softness myself. No excuse for it really but as an aside I broke my camera last week and I am renting the body I shot this with. I may have overlooked something in setting it up the night before. I’ll go back to the original and see if I missed something in processing too.
I’m going to leave it up but I did go back to the original and it is ‘soft’ too. I must have missed something when I focused during the shoot. I depend on auto-focus and I leave my camera set to “beep” when it acquires focus since I’m sure my eyes aren’t as sharp as they were when I was younger. During this shoot I don’t recall hearing the rental beep so I may have inadvertently taken an out of focus image.