So another shot that pretty much leads directly on from the last. Dave and myself had, on the say so of FatPete, taken for a stroll off the beaten track , and spent the Friday of my visit up North; Reccying (if thats a word) the location of tonights post. Its an old (being dismantled by all accounts) solid fuel power station (geotag here later). The scene was very ‘Chernobyl’esque’ and reminded me of post cold war Russia. In fact if you search through FatPetes’ Blog (see previous entry for link), you will probably see some rather dark (in subject matter 😉 ) self portraits where he’s wearing a Gasmask, and its almost the perfect prop to this post-apocolyptic scene.
The image itself is a 3 frame HDR, and I’ve popped a few curves in there for good measure to adjust the sky, and the foreground contrast. The Sun was unblown by the HDR, but it lacked any colour or any perceptable colour, it was a very strange light that day anyway. So (please please excuse the overuse) or abuse of the LENSFLARE filter in PS but I couldn’t resist it for this scene.
It also had the feel of a scene from a computer game…. Another few shots of this location will be posted over the coming days. Its a little OTT for my liking but what the hell, it kinda fitted the subject….. csj
UPDATE: OK I toned the sky down a tad, Dave was right it was too heavy, I think it still is, and it was one of those “if you stare at something for too long you can’t see it” problems…. Thanks for the headsup
- taken|10/01/2009
- camera|Canon EOS 5D
- lens|17mm – 40mm L
- focal length|17mm
- aperture|f/11
- shutter speed|1/45 sec
- shooting mode|Aperture
- exposure bias|0
- metering mode|pattern
- iso|100
- flash fired|No
- image quality|RAW + 16bit TIFF
- raw converter|Photoshop CS3 + Lightroom + Photomatix Pro
- cropped|slight and burn
JFS
Wow thats amazing, thanks for commenting, and hey I would love to see those images at sometime in the future. Thanks for stopping by.
CSJ
I love it! This Powerstation site has an incredible atmosphere. My Grandfather actually used to man the steam locos on this line. I have been in the power station, (soon to be demolished) with my canon. I will send a some shots to you when I get chance to process them
Thanks chaps, it was a great subject, I said to Dave that we could easily spend a day, just between the entry point and the powerstation photographing bits and pieces…. the light on the station was tricky, but suited HDR in every degree. When Dave posts his version of this image you’ll see what I mean…. That said, I’d have loved to have got into the ex-Gypsy site to the immediate left of this shot, it had some interesting stuff in there….. csj
Really like this. It has a dark, moody feel to it. The sky looks great, I didn’t see it prior to it being toned down but it looks perfect now. And I think the position of the sun behind the beams is spot on. Good stuff.
I really really really like this one too – brilliant treatment. I was hoping you’d got some from the power station because I love this kind of imagery. Dark & brooding – love it!
I like this one (bar one thing that I’ll return to in a minute) and think the lensflare works well. I’m not normally a big fan of this filter (I’ve only used it twice on stuff I’ve posted on my blog) but in this instance I think it adds a certain something.
Anyway, the thing that I don’t especially like is the thick band of dark cloud (?) running into the image from the top-right. I know, having seen your original sequence of shots, that this was there in the original, but it just doesn’t seem to quite fit with the rest of the image.
On the whole though, this one works well.
interesting atmosphere!