It’s rare to get a chance to visit the Presidential palace with full photography gear, no holds barred type access. Though there were a few no-go places… we got to see the Corridors of Power. And I finally entered the Photography Competition. I’ll do a complete upload of my finished set shortly.
The deadline is near for this competition. I swant to take part, but it was so hard to choose from all the different photographs that I took. I should have had a much more thorough set, but I often find myself too excited, tired, too whatever to concentrate on the opportunity at hand. Probably one reason I’m not an event photographer.
After shuffling through over 200 images, I finally chose my entry. I called it: “Throw Open The Doors”. Apparently, these doors are never closed. I’m sure the meaning is symbolic: that the doors of power are always open, that the powers that be are always working… something like that!
The original image isn’t perfect by any means: ISO quality not great @ 400; there is motion blur from the slow shutter speed 1/25s. Of course, it’s an action shot, so I didn’t have the chance to reshoot this scene within a short time. The original RAW looked like the left image, I squared it a little to focus on the people coming through the door. I couldn’t bring myself to center the door, though I centered the people.
Then Exposure +.6; contrast -6. Highlights -76; Shadows +58; Whites +18; Blacks -18 to get a wider dynamic range in B&W. Then a slight boost to Clarity/Dehaze, despite TC Lin warning me about these, of +5. A touch more vibrance, too. Finally lots of sharpening & masking. Extra luminance/detail/Smoothness. Perhaps I overdid the color/detail settings, too.
I ran it through Silver FX Pro, which of course converted it to B&W. Tweaked structure, lights and darks, and a few other knobs. For this.
