One of the great things about getting a new piece of software, like Lightroom 2, is that you find a new energy about your work. At least I do. As I wrote about the other day, I’ve begun sorting through my photos and finding the best version of a particular shot and deleting the lesser duplicates. As I go, I often ask myself, “What was I thinking with this one?” and sometimes I come across a little gem that I had either forgotten about or hadn’t considered.

Such was the case with the shot above, taken towards the end of our time at Versailles. We stopped to rest for a moment and look out over one of the courtyards. If you ever visit, you will quickly observe the thousands upon thousands of little details spread throughout the palace. Such care was taken to make even the smallest piece fit into the grand scheme.

One of the things I like about this image is the contrast of how at once you see the fine ornamentation of something so basic and functional as a window latch while at the same time you see the dirt and cracked finish of years of use and curious tourists longing to come into direct contact with history.

Eiffel Tower from Below

École Militaire

Taken at Versailles in May 2008. Processed in Lightroom 1 and Photoshop CS3 (in part with the ReDynaMix HDR plugin). I’d write more about the shot and how I processed it but it’s getting a bit late. Maybe more about it tomorrow.

Shot at the Tower of London, May 20, 2008 with my Nikon D200 using my 18.0-50.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 lens at 34mm. Shot at ISO 400 at 1/125sec at f/5.6 with a -1/3 EV exposure bias.

Just some basic adjustments in LR only. I’ve always liked rustic, old, or antique subjects and it was just a pleasure to get the chance to shoot in London. There were so many opportunities and I don’t feel like I took advantage of enough of them. On our last day there, Kim and I headed over to the Tower of London to catch a glimpse of the Crown Jewels and the torture chamber and just some of the wonderful Old World architecture.

For this shot, I liked the simplicity of the scene. A window, a wall, and some vines. The window is really the main subject so I lined up the center vertical along the left-hand third. It was a great coincidence that the vines seemed to point to the window, drawing the viewer’s eyes into the window. Also, as the wall on the bottom left recedes, it also guides the viewer’s gaze to the window.