I have photographed this building, and these ‘light sources’ before. Especially the first old statue that sits on the landing of the stairs here. It’s breath taking!
Since there’s no real light in the old historic homes I always look around to see what will help, cast shadows, or even blow out a shot.
I had these initial images on ‘hold’. However B&W fun won out.
Charleston, South Carolina.
Less than a day old. Sheep / Lamb.
Middleton Plantation barn yard, South Carolina.
The first three photographs here were taken in the kitchen behind the Aiken-Rhett house. The kitchen, laundry, and storage were behind the main houses. Heat from the constant fires was kept out of the family living quarters.
The final image here was taken in the dark basement area. Old trunks and furniture remain there.
Pair of Great Blue Herons, monochrome finished with DxO Silver Efex.
Most of the old houses that are open in Charleston have limited light sources. In this case it was almost all ambient light from outside. Which is great for me, it’s what I like to shoot.
When shooting monochrome I tend to rely on DxO Silver Efex for the conversion and finishing of the photos. It has become the standard for B&W photography.
Recently I purchased a new PC to maybe better deal with the combination of Windows 11 and Adobe (not really a big help though). What I did not do was reinstall all my custom B&W presets for Silver Efex. It’s back to basics now, but a good thing since the software has been updated substantially over time. New custom ones will be better, I hope.
There’s no better place to work with B&W than the style I like with the Charleston homes. Silver Efex also is well integrated with the DxO Photolab7 editor. DxO in general works better with many RAW files than Lightroom since they are the company that creates and provides camera/lens/RAW data and software to all the other (adobe included) image vendors.
The back rooms in the Akin-Rhett House, Charleston, SC.
About a week or so ago I was bemoaning the lack of Egrets displaying and dancing.
I take it all back.
Best viewed large.
A mixture of Little Blues, juveniles, that are not quite ready to change to full dark blue.
The second bird looks to be really young, maybe a late hatch last year. He has that completely confused look.
Dancing in monochrome. Great Egret.
