PaulWatt
FollowMy local graveyard today.
My local graveyard today.
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Behind The Lens
Location
I took this photo at my local cemetery. I live in the middle of a city so the challenge was to isolate the building as much as possible from it's urban surroundings. I believe that there's always a great composistion to be had if you look for it and you don't need to travel vast distances to find them. This was five minutes walk from my front door.Time
I'm usually up with the birds to shoot through the blue hour and golden hours but on this occasion I was shooting in the middle of the day. The light wasn't great, but the sky was overcast so I thought with a bit of creative thinking and patience I could get a good image.Lighting
As I mentioned this was shot during the day so the light wasn't at its best but the sky was overcast with occasional breaks in the cloud when the sun was shining though so I had to time my exposure to when the sun light was hitting the front of the building. As you can image with a long-exposure like this, I had many shots when the sun disappeared or was coming through so strong it was blowing out the image. Aside from the quality of light, this is one of the disadvantages of shooting in the middle of the day!Equipment
This was shot with a Canon 5d mk II, 24-105 f4 L lens, manfrotto tripod and a ND10 filter.Inspiration
I was having a discussion about old 1980's Heavy metal album covers with a drummer friend of mine a couple of days previously so I was looking to try and get something that I think would have made a great album cover! Daft I know, but you never know where the idea for a photo will come from and I find it's better just to run with it. It might not lead to anything, it may well end up with a great image.Editing
Aside from the Black and White conversion and usual lightroom tweaks (lens correction, white balance, highlights and shadows and a bit of contrast) all I did on this was a touch of the dehaze filter. Because I shot this at f/22, I had a few dust spots to clean up as well. When your shooting at such narrow apertures and doing long exposures, EVERYTHING shows up! I try to do as much as possible in-camera to cut down my post time.In my camera bag
My 5dmk2,manfrotto BeFree tripod, 24-105mm f/4 L and 70-200 f/4 L, Nisi filter holder and various ND filters, polariser filter, cable release, cleaning kit, spare batteries and memory cards, a drink and a snack. Also, depending on the weather conditions and my location, waterproof clothing.Feedback
Have an idea of what you're trying to achieve before setting up. For example with this photo I was going for drama - pure and simple - so my camera was low to the ground to try and get the building to loom. It was always going to be black and white but don't neglect the colour! Get your exposure right and you white balance sorted at time of capture, this make for less time sat in front of your computer (when you could be taking photographs right?) and also the Black and White conversion will be easier.