Photowalk 16 - The Cemetery!

I know this sounds a little weird, but I thought it would be interesting to have a look round the old part of Gosports Grave Yard, where a lot of the graves have been allowed to become overgrown. The place had an atmosphere that's hard to describe. Even though it was a hot day, in the shadows there was a definite chill in the air....

My plans for a slightly different HDR technique didn't work I'm afraid. Not because of the concept, but because of the light. It was incredibly bright, but with really dark shadows, so I didn't get the effect I wanted, so most of these images (apart from the statue) are normal .jpgs, edited in PS CS3. For this shot I wanted to capture a sense of distance, of the Grave Stones disappearing into the grass. I desaturated in Photoshop to give it all a eerie feel, but it would have been nice if the writing on the biggest gravestone was a little clearer.

I'm not sure about this one. The highlights, where the sun was shining through the trees, was incredibly bright, washing out all the detail, so I had to choose between retaining the colour and detail in the shadows, or the highlights. In the end I ended up with this - I've made the backs blacker in Photoshop, and generally tried to make the pic a bit moodier. There isn't really a main subject, but I wanted the viewer to at first not see the gravestones, then start to pick them out from the dark places...

What would a Photowalk be without a Super Macro? This was my pick from about 15 shots - probably the only where I was happy with the framing of the gravestone.

I think I overdid the blur vignette. This was a statue at the head of a grave, so I carefully worked my way around (I was always careful not to step on any of the graves, no matter how old they were), then went to macro mode and tried to frame her face.

There was good and bad in this Photowalk. As I was taking the pictures I thought I'd come up with some good ones, but the strength of the Sun spoiled a lot of what would have been my favourites. Another lesson in "light" then - overcast days are better if you can't get to your location early in the day or late, especially when you're not shooting sky detail.

Thanks, Rob.

Comments

[Weejamer]

You captured that daisy perfectly. Hats off to you sir!

[Rob_Nunn]

Cheers! It's all down to luck and taking loads of pictures of the same subject, constantly reviewing the lcd screen, and hoping that one will turn out ok.