Tag: abandoned

Walker Evans

Posted on by Nick Roberts

walker-evans-1

I decided that due to my procrastination on the new hard drive, (due here at my door tomorrow, Yay!), I would use this time to look into the work of one of my favorite photographers Walker Evans. I went to the library yesterday and picked up ten books of his work to read and absorb.

I’m trying to channel something my photography professor had us do when I first stated formally studying photography. One of his first lectures to us was about going to the Louisville School of Art’s library and looking at the vast catalog of famous photographers to find out whose work resonated with us. This exercise opened my eyes to the work of the Farm Security Administration photographers who worked for the US government during the Great Depression. I discovered Walker Evans while researching these women and men and instantly found his work to be so rich in metaphor and social commentary while at the same time being so well composed and well done technically.

I have already finished reading one of the books and realize that I have been following  in Walker Evans’ tracks for much of my photographic journey. I love the way he gave dignity to his subjects and celebrated the working women and men of his day; it is something I have tried to do with my art for many years as well.

My current project on the Big Four Bridge here in Louisville has another component beyond documenting the progress of the work on the bridge. I am also compiling a record of the men who are doing the physical work on the job. I have already amassed a huge collection of images about them that I will edit over the next year to produce a book to be shared with these men and the Waterfront Development Corporation for their archives. My hope is that these men will be forever linked and identified for their contribution to the city of Louisville and the success of Waterfront Park and that their descendants will be able to come to the archive and find out about them and see them as I saw them while they worked.

Where the Bourbon Was Born

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Memories of Spirits Long Gone
Memories of Spirits Long Gone

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This image is a four exposure bracket set taken at ISO 200 without additional light added. One of the benefits of shooting for HDR is the ability to capture scenes such as this with the extended dynamic range that a bracket set encompasses.

By exposing at +2, +1, 0, and -1 EV I was able to capture the textures within the scene and then merge them using NIK HDR EFex Pro 2. I adjusted the exposure and details in NIK HDR EFex Pro 2 and then I took the resulting image into Nik Silver Efex Pro to create a montone image. As I experimented with the various presets I came upon the “Antique Plate 2” preset which allowed me to create an image that feels as if it were made in another time. I thought the preset fit the subject and gave it an aura of mystery that I was hoping for.

After completing the monotone image I returned it to Aperture 3 where I sharpened it slightly and made a few other minor adjustments.

Water Tower and Distilling Plant

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Water Tower #1

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This is the last set of brackets I was able to shoot when I was on the abandoned distillery this week. Right after these shots were taken the caretaker arrived and asked me to leave.

I shot four exposures of this scene and then merged them in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2. I’ve discovered that using the anti-ghosting at 100% is not necessary and can even cause serious halo issues with bright area such as the sky. I dialed it down to 20% and the results are much better. I really don’t have a lot more to say about this image.

Back to the Distillery Again

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Horizontal old taylor springhouse_Panorama1_HDR
The Old Spring Revisited

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I got up this morning and all I could think about was going back to the abandoned distillery I found last week. I had some ideas I wanted to try out using my 12-24 mm lens to shoot a panorama of this structure. I think I’m beginning to become obsessed with this place and the other unique buildings on the property but that may be coming to an end. Today I was discovered by one of the caretakers of the property who asked me to leave. Since I was trespassing I didn’t argue with him and to be fair he was very polite about the situation. He explained that a couple of weeks ago some vandals had set a fire in the road outside the property and the owners had instructed him to call the police and have anyone found there arrested. He said he wouldn’t do that today but he did let me know that I had been warned about trespassing and that he might not be so understanding if he found me in there again.

I shot this panorama as a four shot bracket set at five different camera angles horizontally. The 12-24 mm lens has a little too much distortion for this technique so if I ever get back in there again I think I’ll shoot it at 50 mm. I merged the five frames in Photoshop CS5 and then cropped the final image before taking it into NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 for tone mapping. I then took it back into Aperture 3 when I slightly reduced the saturation and boosted the vibrancy and structure before sharpening the final image.

I also rendered a copy in Black and White using an orange filter in aperture 3. Please take the time to comment and let me know which version you like best and why.

Horizontal old taylor springhouse_Panorama1_HDR - B&W Version 2

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Exploring an Abandoned Distillery (Part 4)

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Temple of the Whiskey Spirits #3
Temple of the Whiskey Spirits #3

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I thought I would end the week with a couple more shots of the distillery I was exploring. This first image was processed in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 using the Realistic 2 setting from a five shot bracket set. After merging the five shots and adjusting the Tone-Mapping and Tonality sliders I returned the image to Aperture 3 for some minor straightening and cropping as well as sharpening it for output.

I cropped into the image slightly to make the column on the right a stronger foreground element and to direct the eye into the frame. The repitition of the columns unifies the scene and also creates movement within the frame.

I decided to do a Black and White version as well which is the image below. I used NIK Silver Efex Pro to convert the photo to B&W and applied an orange filter to punch up the contrast slightly. I chose the Kodak Panatomic X ISO 32 film setting to get the dramatic blacks that I used to get from the same film in the darkroom.

Temple of the Whiskey Spirits #3 (B&W Version)

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