Gettysburg is a popular tourist destination, especially during Christmas vacations. The historic battlefields are great places to photograph. I always try to find unique or different angles when photographing landmarks, principally because they all photographed to death and I don't want my photos to be like ho-hum same ole photos. I was slowly cruising through the battlefield looking for an opportunity when I came upon a local re enactor dressed in full rebel uniform. None of the tourists seemed to notice him as he walked along. I walked up to him and quickly struck up a conversation. During our talk I asked if he would be so kind to pose for a few pictures for me. He agreed and I quickly looked for a good spot with a clear background. I wanted to show the realism of what it could have looked like back in the day. The sun was setting so the light was great for portraits. I found a lone canon and decided the best angle would be shooting in to the sun. This would normally be ideal if I had some sort of reflector or some fill flash to bounce some light back at him, to make sure I didn't lose too much detail in the shadows. I decided to HDR, ( high dynamic range ) a burst of five images spaced one stop apart would be my best approach. I used my Nikon D3 with 24-85mm lens at f8 aperture priority, iso 400. I also used a graduated neutral density filter to drop the exposure of the bright sky. I moved around my subject and shot various angles to get a variety of images. In my hast to work fast I stepped into a puddle of very cold water in the field...lol. I thanked him very much for posing for my camera and he went on his way. I felt very fortunate to have run in to him, and I knew I had some really great images to bring home. The images above were then uploaded to Adobe Camera Raw, processed in Photomatix and finished in Photoshop CC. I used various techniques ( sepia tone ) to replicate an old photo look.
No comments:
Post a Comment