Not Yet Lucky

Apologise for not contributing to this blog earlier. Was very busy last week, was away for the weekend and finally getting round to it.

I was unable to attend either of the Scott's Run expeditions. However, after accompanying some of the group on the Dumbarton/Oak Hill Cemetery visit on Monday last week, I returned to the Cemetery on Tuesday - a lovely cloudy day, good for taking pictures. I'll post a few from each day's shoot.

Some of us shot this view. I honestly didn't know what to do with it, as even simple development in LR made the image come out looking somewhat harsh. In the end I remembered that the truly striking aspect of the scene was the carpet of colours, and tried to reproduce the effect. Seemed to work better that way, at least for me. But I sense the picture  is never really going to work, What does one do with that fence?

Perhaps my favourite picture from the two days: pure luck, descending down the path from where the previous picture was taken. In theory, as in the picture before, it's possible to obtain greater tonal contrast, but I decided not to. The picture has a soft-focus look to it which seemed to capture the early-morning moment better.

Kitsch, pure kitsch, whatever the pretence of practising depth-of-field.

I was walking down a path in the Cemetery and saw dear Barbara absolutely awash in reflected light. The picture was cropped to try and capture what I think she was seeing and captivated by.

Now this is Bergman territory - Max von Sydow is just outside the frame. More seriously, though, by this time the sun was boring full down, everything was in high contrast, and the only way anything I shot came out looking half-way good was by converting the image to B&W.

So, on to the second day. It was cloudy, I wandered further into the cemetery, and paths were often strewn with fallen magnolia petals. Should have made for good pictures. I didn't come away with anything exceptional though.

I took a number of pictures like the above  - of angels and other figurines perched on top of pedestals. In hindsight they seem uninteresting and even ridiculous as images. There ought to be something else to add some movement or dynamism, or a story perhaps - otherwise pointless. Besides, the one above looks as if she is about to drop a crown of concrete on someone's head.

One of the few graves with flowers. The composition, I think, is way too busy;I should have been much more careful in blurring out the background.

The "same" headstones as in the earlier B&W. I wanted to get a shot where the holes in the crosses looked into emptier space i.e. not immediately filled by the grey of a forward headstone. No such luck - there was no angle from which this could be done. Notwithstanding, I like the result.

Not a bad vista. There is a quietness here.

The above required a little work, The contrast in the "greens" was quite striking at the scene. However, in LR, the colours were quite uncooperative in coming out "right"; did better in PS. Moreover the cross on the top of the tall forward grave marker appeared to get lost into the background of leaves and branches.. I think it is somewhat rescued by a bit of dodging and burning. Obviously, it would have been preferable  if I had been able to do something about the light in the top-corner left, but composing the bits of sky out seemed to parse out the steepness of the hill. I left it as is.

Not bad, I think, but could be better. In particular if I had thought about getting separation between the spire and the tree on the left, and if the sky looked less muddy than it does.

The first of the two pictures above needs more work. It could be lightened up a bit. 

As to the second, it's an example of a couple of pictures I took where the petals are on the ground and the grey sky is showing through the background branches and leaves. (See also the stairs to the cross picture above). Is this successful? I am inclined to say Not. The scenes were much more striking at the time than they appear here - brighter, for a start. Here they come through with a pervasive dullness. Not quite sure what's wrong. Someone suggested at a recent seminar I attended that, on cloudy, and on very bright days one should exclude the sky as much as possible - they add little to an image. I don't think that's the problem here - but I do think some sort of boost is needed.

The last picture, as anyone who has come this far will be glad to read

I'm speculating the pictures would have been improved if I had used a polariser. My thoughts at the time were that one shouldn't/needn't use a polariser on cloudy days; but I've heard since that that isn't necessarily true. The problem is that white petals can create a lot of highlights almost specular in nature. One wants to tamp these down in LR etc - and the result is this kind of dullness. Next cloudy day, I'll try to remember the polariser.

Best, and I hope I've got the width-height dimensions of these images right for the blog. I just converted them out of LR, and some of the file sizes appear quite large.

Farid