Challenge: Industrial II (Basic Editing)
Collection: South Carolina
Camera: Nikon D200
Lens: Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM for Nikon
Location: Fort Moultrie, SC
Date: Jul 22, 2010
Aperture: 5.6
ISO: 800
Shutter: 1/20s
Date Uploaded: Jul 25, 2010
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This "door" is about 4 feet high by 2 feet wide. It's in the back of Fort Moultrie at the entrance to the harbor in Charleston, SC. It was used from the 1700s right through World War II, and its guns could fire 500-pound shells 8 miles out to sea. It was part of a set of forts that included Fort Sumter, site of the opening shots of the U.S. Civil War. It was very interesting exploring with my wife and stepdad while on vacation at the beach. But it was HOT. More info about the fort.
We guessed it was an air vent serving the gun batteries upstairs. I'm not at all sure it opens.
I originally took this shot thinking I'd enhance the green on the plant growing on the right side. I was amazed to find anything growing in there, since there's no direct light. This little walkway is about 6 feet deep, so probably no water gets in there, either.
Shot at 10mm. I love this lens! I crouched down in the opening and pressed my shoulders against both walls to brace myself for the slow exposure.
Once I started experimenting, I decided a more stark B&W would work better, so you don't even know that's a plant.
Edited in iPhoto: increased contrast and exposure, used the shadow slider a bit so it's not quite so black, and desaturated. When you use the desaturation slider, you can then use the temperature slider to change the B&W conversion, experimenting to see what you like best. In this case, I put the temp as low as it would go, so if you look at it in color, it's quite blue.
The one thing that bothered me was how dark the top of the grating was. I actually pulled it into Photoshop and through multiple adjustment layers, managed to bring out a bit more detail without brightening up the rest of it. But I lost some contrast in the walls, so decided to just use the iPhoto version.
Here's the original:
Here's how it looks, showing the sliders and settings.
To show how the temperature affects the B&W conversion, here's how it would've looked with the temp slider at the other end:
And here's how it would've looked if I hadn't desaturated it. I desaturated, then played with the temperature to get the B&W how I wanted it, so I never actually saw this version until I wrote up these notes:
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