untitled archway

Posted by danthro (Suburbia, United States) on 20 May 2008 in Architecture and Portfolio.

Comments, feedback, criticism, suggestions, etc. are always appreciated. Thanks!
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Comments (24)

Oeilonirique from France

A very beautiful sepia reflecting at most possibilité the authenticity of old architecture.

20 May 2008 12:44am

leibowitz from Spain

very intimate shot. nice lght and color

20 May 2008 4:53am

Frank from Germany

Beautiful point of view. Very nice processing.

20 May 2008 5:53am

mosleh from kurdestan_baneh, Iran

great shot (bji kurd ) :)

20 May 2008 6:18am

Marie from FRESNES, France

très belle composition.

20 May 2008 6:51am

sherri from Little Rock, Arkansas, United States

How marvelous. This is just spectacular.

20 May 2008 8:33am

Anthony Lambert from Germany

Great architecture and lots of history in this great shot.Well done.

20 May 2008 8:42am

Jen from Alpharetta, United States

Great tones and framing

20 May 2008 8:46am

yiannis krikis from thessaloniki, Greece

great architecture image - great light and tone control

20 May 2008 11:03am

Kevin from OrganicPIX.com from DFW, Texas, United States

Oh, very nice - the texture and tones make it look like an intricate etching!

20 May 2008 11:57am

@Kevin from OrganicPIX.com: Thanks! I used that shadows/highlights thing in photoshop that I learned about from you, made all the difference!

vu@granby - Wolfgang from Granby, Québec, Canada

I like the clarity, sharpness & perspective, it also makes me think.... Good one!

20 May 2008 2:26pm

Ron from Saint Louis, United States

That is one terrific untitled archway ... beautiful architecture!

20 May 2008 3:03pm

MaryB from Staffordshire, United Kingdom

Stunning architecture and a fabulous shot, nice one Dan.

20 May 2008 6:35pm

Sean from Champaign, United States

Really fond of these old archways. Can't get enough of the work and detail that went into them.

20 May 2008 8:51pm

John Maslowski from Dallas, PA, United States

Stunning image, I just love the details and composition of this archway. Great work!

20 May 2008 9:10pm

Persian King from Tehran, Iran

Just beautiful and well rendered.

20 May 2008 10:37pm

Alun Lambert from cheshire, United Kingdom

Realy good Architecture image

20 May 2008 11:40pm

Pouhou from Apeldoorn, Netherlands

really nice treatment

21 May 2008 1:31am

Oswegan from Lake Oswego, United States

Cool. I like the shadow detail.

21 May 2008 11:14am

Twelvebit from Victoria, United States

Looks like some highlight clipping in the foreground and back ground. I wouldn't consider it a mistake unless you intended to capture detail in the highlights, because if that's the case, you could have bracketed, or metered the highlights and let the shadows fall where they may. Here, to me, it looks like the corridor would be too dark if you metered from the highlights, so that leaves only two options to avoid losing detail: 1) use supplemental lighting, like a flash (often not practical, though I might have worked in this case); or 2) bracket and Photoshop. My personal taste is to avoid blown highlights, unless they're unavoidable, or a desired design element. For some reason I find the foreground clipping less troublesome than the background clipping.

21 May 2008 3:18pm

@Twelvebit: i can own up--it was a mistake. i appreciate your honesty in mentioning it. but i didn't mind how it looked after some photoshopping, except the background in the distance still annoys me it's so blown out. i was in a hurry when i took this, and on a trip so i can't go back and redo it for now anyway. what's bracketing and metering, and can i do it on a point and shoot?

Twelvebit from Victoria, United States

Bracketing is taking multiple shots at different exposures. I don't know about your particular camera, but some P&S's allow exposure compensation so you can take one shot without compensation, one shot at -2 stops, and one shot at +2 stops --as an example. Of course, doing this manually may lead to alignment problems if you're trying to combine images.

Taking this shot as an example, another thing you can do, assuming your camera has an exposure lock button --which many P&S's do-- is zoom in on that bright spot in the background, lock your exposure, and then zoom back out to the composition you want. Then you will have effectively metered for the highlights. If this doesn't drive the shadow area too dark then you can lighten it up in Photoshop.

Another possibility is to use a "backlight" setting if your camera has one, and some P&S's do.

P&S cameras are limiting. My D80 has automatic bracketing --you can set +/- up to 5 stops and fire off three shots in rapid succession with automatic exposure compensation-- but my D40 does not. To bracket with the D40 I just start at plus however many stops I want and crank down the exposure compensation with each shot. Both cameras have three different metering modes: 1) matrix --which I use most of the time and is probably what your P&S has; 2) center weighted; and 3) spot. I think #3 is something like a 2 degree spot, which means that for a scene with a large dynamic range I can meter off a very small portion of the subject and make sure I have detail in the highlights (or shadows if I so choose, since you can't have both in this condition). Of course, if the dynamic range of the scene is greater that what the camera can duplicate, something has to go, so if you can't bracket or use flash, you have to choose whether you want to retain detail in the highlights or the shadows.

21 May 2008 6:25pm