Palácio do Sola III

1


The Story
September 2010. I had moved to the new house a couple months earlier and I remembered that, when I was considering buying this house, I went to google maps to check the surroundings. At that time I saw some abandoned houses nearby and I decided to check them out. I saw in the satellite pictures two candidates at a walking distance from home. I marked them in my photo map and decided to google for some more abandoned houses nearby. I found out that an old palace was in ruins and it was very near from home. This was a Friday evening and the weather forecast for the weekend had some cloudy skies. So I decided that I would go scout these places in the next day.
Saturday, I left home with the gear and walked to the first abandoned house in my list. It was a very small house in a place that had no interest whatsoever so I moved on to the next. The second one didn't inspired me any security: I wasn't even sure if it was abandoned, there were cars parked nearby and it was very isolated. I decided it wasn't worth the risk and walked on to the last one on the list: The Sola's Palace (Palácio do Sola).
When I got there, I saw a big open field adjacent to the main building and decided to walk across it to get some good perspectives on the house. Turned out that the house was on top of a small hill, the open field was over crowded with high weeds and there was no entrances there.
I turned back to the street and tried another entry that led directly to some secondary building of the complex. With all my senses in alert state (you never know what you are going to find in that kind of places) I proceeded to the first room. It had no ceiling, as almost every rooms in the entire complex. This was somehow good as the probability of running onto inhabitants was very low. In the entire complex I saw only about 2/3 rooms with ceiling (one of them had a mattress and that meant someone was living there).
I took a lot of pictures in the whole complex and called it a day.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC

1/125 second
F/9.0
10 mm
200

Original Photo


Post Processing
This photo was kinda cliche: the 10-20 deformation, the corner alignment, the surrounding trees, the great sky. Maybe that was the reason why it was the fourth to be chosen form that day. The treatment on this one was exactly the same as in the preceding two (Palácio do Sola I and II) and it was meant to be some sort of trilogy. Somehow, this one grew on me as the days went by.
I imported it into Lightroom, and applied the same processing used in Barri Gotic (I created at the time a preset called "JPN - Gothic") as a starting point. Then I adjusted the Vignetting to my like, decreased the Fill Light, increased the Exposure and convert it to Black & White (increased the Greens and the Yellows, decreased the Blues and the Aquas). To compensate the Exposure increment, I added a Graduated Filter to darken the sky a bit. Changed the Point Curve to Strong Contrast, slightly increased the Clarity and decreased the Temperature to 5000. To finalize it, I did some Color Noise Reduction. These were the adjustments made to the first one of the trilogy. For this specific one, I've also increased the Fill Light, the Green Gray Level and the Black Clipping.

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Palacio-do-Sola-III-180600139
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House Of Doom

0


The Story
July, 2009. It was summer but it felt like it was Autumn. The weather was too bad for the beach so my wife suggested that we went to Palácio Nacional de Queluz (check the
Palácio Nacional de Queluz photo story for more details)...
The sky was great that day, cloudy as I like it, so I started to try some different perspectives from the palace building. It didn't took me long to mount the ND Grad filters in the camera to enhance the sky even more.
I wasn't quite satisfied with the different perspectives and this one was my favorite... but it had a big problem. The big flower pots that were at the sides of the walkway weren't at symmetrical positions.
I took some more photos and then we went inside the palace.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC
Hitech 85 ND 0.9 GRAD SE filter

1/160 second
F/9.0
12 mm
100

Original Photo


Post Processing
This photo was one of my top candidates from the ones I took in that photo trip. But, as I suspected, the asymmetrical pots were completely ruining the photo. So it rested for 13 months in my hard drive waiting for the day I would decide to give it a chance.
In August 2010, with my photo trips cut very short, I decided to give it a try.
I imported it into Lightroom, slightly aligned it and started to try some of the presets. The one that shed some light was "Civil War 2" preset by Vidular (you can find it here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vidular/2456010834/). What if I dramatically increased the vignetting to hide the asymmetrical pots? That preset overexposed the center of the photo, so I reduced the Exposure by 1 EV. Then I also reduced the Sharpening and converted to Grayscale (increased the Greens and the Yellows). Then came the hard part: try to apply Vignetting that would hide the pots, but wouldn't ruin the photo. This was a long step with a lot of try and error until it eventually ended in a acceptable combination. Finally, I've applied my custom Split Tone setting (the one that I used in so many photos like: King of Darkness, Bridge To Neverland or Old Boat).
And that was it. Still not quite fun of the asymmetrical pots, but I think that, overall, it's a nice photo.

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/House-Of-Doom-174536519
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Arco de S. Bento

0


The Story
April 2009. Since some time I started to leave the car home and take the public transportation to go to work. I would pick the train to Sete Rios and there I took a company bus to work.
Sete Rios was an area of Lisboa that I never properly explored before, photographically speaking. So, one day I took an early train and scouted the area for some interest points. There we have the Twin Towers, an hotel and some other buildings that captured my interest.
In the next weekend after this scouting, I decided to grab the gear and head there. My wife went shop seeing at El Corte Inglés and I started discovering this area.
I started in the Twin Towers (next to Sete Rios train station) and then walked across the José Malhoa Avenue towards Praça de Espanha. A lot of interesting buildings exist in this avenue and in Praça de Espanha there is a Triumphal Arch. This arch was part of the Aguas Livres aqueduct and then it was dismantled and became a pile of rocks for some decades. Nowadays it is, re-assembled, in Praça de Espanha.
The sky that day wasn't overcast as I like it, but it had some high clouds to compose the scenario. I took some photos of this place and then head back to my wife.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC

1/160 second
F/9.0
10 mm
100

Original Photo


Post Processing
This photo was my first choice from the ones I took that afternoon and it was published in the same day it was taken.
I imported the NEF file into Lightroom, cropped it to my like and removed some dust spots. Then I applied the Mike Lao's "300 V2" preset (you can find it here: http://inside-lightroom.com/?page_id=11) and started retouching some settings: Highlight Recovery to the maximum (the stone was too overexposed after the preset), reduced the Black Clipping and the Vignetting, increased the Sharpening and converted to Grayscale. In the Gray Levels, I slightly decreased the Blues, highly decreased the Reds and highly increased the Greens. Finally I increased Clarity to 30.
In CS4, I've converted to Black & White (Red Filter preset), applied some Shadows/Highlights (0%/20%), added some extra Vignetting (I preferred to do it here rather than in Lightroom because of the significant crop the original image took) and finally: Auto Tone, Auto Contrast, Auto Color and Auto Levels.

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Arco-de-S-Bento-118119110
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Old Boat

0


The Story
May, 2010. Almost 5 months after my
last photo trip, I finally managed to get out of the house. It is true what they say that us, photographers, have the need to shoot frequently, or else we develop some sort of hangover, like a deprived addict:) All this time my shooting sessions had resumed to one subject: my daughter Lara. And don't get me wrong, she is a fantastic model, but portrait just isn't my favorite photographic style. Maybe with time and with the dramatic skies gone for the next months I would dedicate myself more to portrait.
I was in my final working leave of absence for parenthood and a few days previously I had passed this spot (on the way for Lara's doctor :)). It is in Arrentela's part of the Seixal Bay, a place I passed by a few times before. There, there is an old boat abandoned in front of some restaurant in the bay.
So, as the weather was good for photography (i.e. cloudy as I like it) I picked up the gear, including the tripod and the ND filters, and headed there. On arrival I noticed that there was a high tide, what was a bit disappointing because it meant that the boat was inside the water. I parked nearby and headed to what was left of the shore to get some good perspective. I tried quite a few shots, with the tripod and the ND filters, only with the ND Grads, without anything... Not quite satisfied I decided to take a walk along the bay to see what else I could find.
I stopped near some sewer pipes and tried some long exposures for a while. After that I returned back to the boat and got somehow lucky: the tide had started to get lower and I could get to the boat. That was the good part. The bad part was that the sun was now much lower and in the back of the boat. I tried a couple shots with the ND Grad filter hand held in front of the lens, covering the flare with one of the free fingers I got left, and then called it a day.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC
Hitech 85 ND 0.9 GRAD SE filter

1/160 second
F/9.0
13 mm
100

Original Photo


Post Processing
Back home, this photo was one of the few selected. I liked the perspective and it was one of the few that hadn't massive lens flare caused by the Sun in the upper left corner.
I had mixed feelings with this photo has I had with Palafitico. Because of the hard light and the muddy nature of the ground, it was too dirty for my taste. But I quite liked the perspective (if the sky was covered with clouds it would be perfect) so I decided to give it a chance.
I imported the NEF into Lightroom, slightly aligned it and cropped it to my like. Then I changed the Point Curve to Strong Contrast and started playing around with the usual presets. This time, none of the ones I already had used satisfied me. There was another one thou, that could be a good base for further work: COL Hamburg's Funky Twist (you can get it here: http://inside-lightroom.com/?page_id=11).
After the preset, I converted to Grayscale, added some Vignetting and applied my usual Split Tone preset (Highlights: H55, S31; Balance: 53; Shadows: H55, S0). Then, I slightly increased the Exposure and decreased the Blacks.
There was one thing that I didn't liked: the ground was too sharp and dirty. I need to do something to minimize this situation and a Graduated Filter was the answer. I added one to the bottom of the image with -100 in Contrast, Clarity and Sharpness. I also added another with -0,3 in Exposure in the same place. After this, I brushed the boat with an Exposure of 0,4 to light it a bit. To finalize the retouches, I messed with the Grey Levels and decrease the Blues, Magentas and Purples.
In CS4, I just increased the Contrast a little bit. And that was it!
As I said before I had mixed feelings with this one, but I think it turned out OK.

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Old-Boat-163841443
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Torre de Monsanto I

0


The Story
April, 2009. Every day on my way to work I take this highway and pass by this tower. It is an office building in Miraflores, near Lisboa and it's particular shape always fascinated me. In Portugal we don't have too many high buildings and this is one of the few.
I work in a financial group and, as a benefit, we have the Thursday's afternoon off in the day before Holy Friday. In that Thursday, the sky was promising so I took the gear to work in hope of some good shots after.
In those days, a highway high pass was being built and it was still closed to traffic, so that spot was perfect for the perspective I wanted.
I parked near the construction site and walked across the high pass to be exactly above the highway. I took some shots and then headed to the belly of the beast (the tower itself).

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC

1/160 second
F/9.0
10 mm
100

Original Photo


Post Processing
This photo was my first choice from the ones I took in that afternoon. As soon I arrived home I started to pick a few to post process.
This one, with the black street and the white lines in the pavement had "Black & White" written all over :)
So I imported the NEF into Lightroom, aligned and cropped it to my like and the head straight to my favorite preset - the one that have all the treatment I applied in King of Darkness and that is the base for some other photos of mine.
Then I reduced the Vignetting, increased the Sharpening and adjusted the Grey Levels (upped the Oranges and Greens a bit).
Finally, I've added a Graduated Filter to even the Vignetting in the top left side.
In CS4, I've adjusted the Levels and added some Contrast.

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Torre-de-Monsanto-I-118657544
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Barri Gotic

0


The Story
May, 2009.
Once again, we followed my sister and this time we ended up in Barcelona. She was studying there for some months and we couldn't waste the opportunity to know this beautiful city (with free accommodations). Before we went there, we've made a list of places to see and the Barri Gotic (Gothic quarter) was one of the main spots. I've had seen some pictures of it and I was hopping to find this exact spot, but I didn't knew exactly where it was. So it was a nice to have if we would end up in this alley.
In the first day of our visit, we started with Casa Batló from Gaudi in the morning and then we met up with my sister in the Gothic quarter to have some lunch. After lunch we were strolling around the Gothic and we ended up in this exact spot.
I took some photos of it and then we moved on.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
AF-S NIKKOR 18-70mm 1:3.5-4.5G ED

1/30 second
F/3.5
18 mm
800

Original Photo


Post Processing
February 2010. Facing my new reality (parenthood), I decided to check my hard drive for some old photos to process. I'd been to Barcelona almost one year before and I always had the feeling that none of the photos that I published had any special value. For some reason I can't explain, this photo wasn't in my candidate list from the Barcelona shots. This time I decided to give it a chance.
I imported the NEF into Lightroom, slightly aligned it and when straight to the "Awesome BW" preset from synaestheta (you can find it here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/presets/discuss/72157612664073371/). The photo was almost perfect but it still needed some adjustments so I've: increased the Sharpening, added some Post-Crop Vignetting to hide that wooden bars in the top and reduced the Saturation to the minimum. Finally, I've changed the Split Toning to match the one that I used in some others photos like Bridge To Neverland or The Hero.
And that was it. Basically it's the synaestheta preset with a different tone.

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Barri-Gotic-154393278
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233 seconds

0


The Story
December, 2009. The year was coming to an end and our life was about to get a U-turn very soon with the birth of our daughter. The photo trips were very few in that time and this one was to be the last one, for some time. I've already had been to Cais do Ginjal in Cacilhas and had taken some good photos there (like:
The Pier and Cais do Ginjal II). This time I was about to try to capture a long exposure of the Tagus River during day time.
I picked the gear plus the tripod and we headed to Cacilhas. I miscalculated the hour and the remaining daylight available. This kind of photos take some time to capture: with preparing time and Long Exposure NR after, a 4 minutes exposure (like this one) takes about 10 minutes.
My wife stayed in the car while I went to the piers to get a good perspective. I knew that the Sun was setting too fast and I would only have a couple tries, at most. This photo was my first one. I picked a pier that would give me a good view over Lisboa, prepared the tripod and took a test run shot. This test run shot is useful to check the perspective and the exposure variables, and to later on compare with the long exposure shot. A couple test shots later I got a good perspective and calculated the exposure time, considering the 10 stops (as I mentioned previously in Rossio photo story, I multiply the exposure time by 1000 and round it upper).
With almost everything in place, I placed carefully the filter holder with the ND filter on it. Now it was time to a very important step: cover the filter holder so no light would come into the lens from anywhere else than the filter itself. For this I used the upper side of a black sock. I cut the elastic area of it, what gave me a dark tissue ring that fits perfectly in the filter holder.
With all set, I used the IR remote to start the exposure in bulb mode and counted 3 minutes. As the night was coming fast and my last tries at this hour of the day went not that good, I decided to increase one more minute to the calculated time. So, almost 4 minutes exposure would be enough, but I would have to wait another 4 to check the result (tip: in long exposure shots, almost every camera have a setting turned on by default - and should remain that way 99% of the times - to reduce the noise produced by the overheating of some pixels in the camera sensor. What the camera does is, after taking the photo, it closes the shutter and takes another shot with the same duration. The point is that the pixels that overheated the first time, will overheat in this second time. Then, the camera processor can compare both shots and remove this "hot" pixels.).
After this shot, I tried another one, 10 minutes long, that didn't came out very good because it was already dark. So, it was a small photo trip that took about 45 minutes and only gave me time to take two photos :)

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC
Hitech 85 ND 3.0 filter
Slik Pro 340DX tripod

233/1 second
F/9.0
13 mm
100

Original Photo


Post Processing
Back home, I went to inspect the two photos taken that late afternoon. The second one was too dark and I tried to get some of it in post processing because it was my favorite in terms of perspective. I failed to "fix" it so I would had to return there another day.
In this one, I first tried to fix the colors to see if it would surprise me but ended up with the black and white. What I've done was the following.
I imported the NEF into Lightroom and started by aligning the horizon and cropping it to my like. Then applied some Highlight Recovery and added a Graduated Filter to darken the sky. Increased the Exposure by one stop, reduced the Vignetting that resulted from the filter holder and converted to Grayscale. Then I adjusted the Gray levels on the Blues (up), Purples (down), Aquas (up) and Yellows (down); boosted the Clarity to 100%, re-increased the Exposure by half a stop and increased the Blacks to 35%. Finally, I updated the Graduated Filter exposure to darken the sky even more and increased the Fill Light.
In CS4, I've simply reduced the noise and applied an Auto Levels.
I kinda liked the result but knew that there were a long road ahead in this kind of photography.

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/233-seconds-148090938
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Backsided

0


The Story
January 2009. About one month after my last visit to this place, I returned to this abandoned ship yard near the Quinta da Atalaia, Seixal (check
Abandonado photo story for more details on this spot). This time, I went in a more proper hour, where I would have some more day light, and with the motivation of exploring even further. Each time I go there, I get more confident (read: less afraid to explore) and I explore a bit deeper into the ship yard.
In this mini photo trip, I took an additional accessory: a grad neutral density filter to darken the sky. The sky was great in that day: very cloudy as I like it.
I explored the same spots that I had explored in the previous trip but in more detail and discovered another interesting spots there. I took plenty of photos this time and stayed there for almost one hour. As in the last trip, I went there alone.
This photo was taken over some very muddy ground, almost in the bay, and it captured this ship, in the rails that would lead it back to water (that never happened, thou :)).

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC
Hitech 85 ND 0.9 GRAD SE filter

1/15 second
F/5.6
13 mm
200

Original Photo


Post Processing
This photo was one of my three choices from the ones I took that afternoon and it was published in the same day it was taken. The other two photos that I published were, one of them in black and white and the other trying to keep the original colors. In this one I decided to apply a different look.
I imported the NEF file into Lightroom, aligned and cropped it to my like. Then I applyied the Mike Lao's "300 V1" preset (you can find it here: http://inside-lightroom.com/?page_id=11) and simply reduced the Vignetting.
It was just that. I really liked the result and decided to don't change anything else.

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Backsided-108437783
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The Hill

0


The Story
April, 2008. After New York, the second part in our US trip was Washington DC. I never thought of visiting DC. New York was always the idea, but after one evening at the movies (I can't remember which movie it was, but the story was in DC) I decided that, if we were to cross the Atlantic to see New York, it would be a waste not to go to DC. So we stayed 4 days in NY and the headed to DC for 3 more days (check the
NYC - Times Square photo story for more details on the NY trip).
DC is almost the opposite of NY: it's a very clean, organized, low buildings city. It remembered me of European cities like Paris. It has plenty green spaces, the buildings are monumental and it was kinda hot (in opposition to NY where we freezed) when we were there. It has lots of monuments and we tried to see the most of them.
We traveled by train to DC and it was a very enlightening trip. We passed across Philadelphia and Baltimore on our way to DC. There was one thing that surprised us a lot. If we forget all the glamour of the great cities, the rest of the country is very poor. The suburbs are something unthinkable in European standards: very poor, very dirty, like nothing I can find here in Portugal (which is one of the poorer countries in Europe) except in slums. As the most powerful and most advanced nation in the planet, that kinda shocked me a bit.
Back to DC, we stayed in a very trendy (and noisy, as we found out later) hotel near the center and we mainly walked across the city. One of the spots to see was The Capitol, which, unfortunately, we weren't able to visit inside because all the tickets had been given when we got there. I took some photos there and then we continued our DC visit.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC

1/200 second
F/9.0
20 mm
100

Original Photo


Post Processing
January 2010. My daughter was born in the 5th of this month and I was home almost one month now. In a few days I was to return back to work and try to return to my normal life after 4 intense weeks of parenting (it was my first kid). As the work home never stopped (with some 2/3 hours exceptions every now and then) the opportunity to grab the camera and get out was a mirage. So I decided to check some old photos to see if there was any worthy of a second chance. This photo seamed appealing so I decided to give it a shot.
I imported the NEF into Lightroom and started playing around with presets (as usual) and noticed one that I never had tried before: "Awesome BW" preset from synaestheta (you can find it here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/presets/discuss/72157612664073371/). The photo was almost perfect but it still needed some adjustments so I've: increased the Sharpening, reduced the Vignetting, increased the Contrast, the Exposure, the Brightness and the Clarity.
In CS4, I've simply increased the Brightness and the Contrast even more. I tried to increase these settings in Lightroom but, for some reason I can't explain, I didn't managed to get the same satisfactory result there.
And that was it. Basically it's the synaestheta preset with a (small) twist.


Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/The-Hill-152324661
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The Watch

0


The Story
February, 2009. My new acquisition, the 10 stop filter from Hitech, had arrived a few days ago. I was looking to buy an extreme Neutral Density filter since the first time I had seen photos with long exposures during the day. Now that I already had the filter, I started searching for potential spots. They had to be near a water scape. After some search I decided to go to Cabo Raso, near Cascais, about 35 Km from Lisboa. This is a very common spot for long exposure shots near Lisboa.
In this day the sky was cloudy and that would add some extra interest to the scenery: moving clouds :) So I talked with my wife and she agreed to take a small trip there. I packed the usual gear plus the tripod and we headed to Cabo Raso. When we arrived, we parked the car near the lighthouse and my wife stayed inside reading while I went exploring.
First I went towards the rocky beach that's near the lighthouse. I tried some classical perspectives with the rocks in the sand in the foreground and the sea in the background. I had lots of problems with these shots: it was windy, the wide angle lens made me approach the sea and the spray kept the filter dirty all the time. The few shots I managed to take without spray were full of noise from the filter holder light (Later on I discovered a good technique to get around this issue: use part of a sock around the filter holder).
For some tips on how to proper use these kind of filters,
please check the Rossio photo story.
Next stop: the lighthouse. This time, from an upper level, I had all the conditions to get away from the spray and try the filter. I took some photos with the lighthouse in the frame. From this same spot, I noticed some abandoned watches that were part of an old fortification that existed there. I took a couple pictures of these watches and get back to the car. The Sun had already set and it was too dark to continue. For the first experiment I was satisfied.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC
Hitech 85 ND 3.0 filter
Slik Pro 340DX tripod

100/1 second
F/9.0
13 mm
100

Original Photo


Post Processing
When I reviewed the few photos taken this day, I came to a conclusion: almost all of them were rubbish. They were too dirty and too dark. Even this one, if you look at it, it's badly exposed (note: if you take this kind of photos very near the sunset, it's hard to get the exposure right because the light is fading rapidly. You need to increase the exposure time quite a lot than the calculated one) and the colors are all wrong. This last problem was a non issue because the idea was to convert it to Black and White.
I imported the NEF into Lightroom and started by removing some dust spots (they were more visible because I used a very small aperture) and then adjusted the White Balance and the Blue Hue (I always try to get the colors right before converting to Black and White, who knows if the real colors surprise me). Then I added some Fill Light and increased the Blacks, added a Graduated Filter to darken the sky a bit just before I increase the Exposure. Then I started playing around with presets and ended up using the "Matt's Classic Split Tone" preset (you can find it here: http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/2007/monday-preset-my-favorite-split-tone/), followed by some high Vignetting increase and by another preset: "Civil War 2" preset by Vidular (you can find it here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vidular/2456010834/). Finally, I adjusted the Vignetting to my like.
In CS4, I've converted to Black and White (Maximum White preset), increased the Contrast and applied the "Warm (26)" action (you can find this and other actions to simulate the effect of Gradient filters here: http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com). This gave me the full size (10Mp) final image.
I usually publish my photos with 1024px in the largest size and use a great Photoshop action by Manyk to do the re-size. You can find it here: http://manyk.deviantart.com/art/Web-Sharpening-with-Photoshop-29038461

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/The-Watch-114546227
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Mosteiro da Batalha I

0


The Story
November 2009. My wife was now a little more than a month away from the scheduled date for the birth of our daughter. Her mother's birthday was a few days before this day so we went to Marinha Grande in the weekend for her to be with them.
It was a rainy day and I had been googling for some interesting places nearby for some photo trip. I identified two places: Batalha and Nazaré. We had lunch with her folks and then I drove to Batalha. The idea was to take some photos of the Monastery and then go to Nazaré.
When I arrived at Batalha, it was raining quite a bit. I waited a couple minutes in the car to see if it would stop, but it didn't. Tired of waiting, I picked up the gear and the umbrella and went for a look around. Maybe the rain would stop meanwhile... It didn't. I started with the Unfinished Chapels, where I took some photos and them started to go around the monument to search for another interesting spots. In the opposite side of the monastery, there is the entry to the church itself, so I went in.
This church is quite different from the usual churches: it has no statues, almost nothing to remind us that it is a church. The day was very dark because of the clouds and the inside of the church was lit only by chandeliers light which created a very interesting atmosphere. I started experimenting different perspectives and this one was the classic one: a symmetrical view of the main hall, with one chandelier on each side. I took some other photos in different perspectives in the, almost one hour that I've been there. I was fascinated with the lightning and the low light on the outside allowed me to capture the stained windows perfectly, without underexposing the inside of the church.
I was looking for some good church interior photos for some time now, but never got satisfied with the result... until this day.
Of course that Nazaré trip was canceled. When I left Batalha it was already nighttime.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC

1/3 second
F/4.0
10 mm
800

Original Photo


Post Processing
This was my first choice from the dozens of photos I took that afternoon. At first I thought of converting it to Black & White, but quickly gave up that idea. The colored stained windows deserved to be left untouched.
So I imported the NEF file into Lightroom and done minor adjustments: corrected the White Balance, slightly increased the Blacks, boosted the Clarity to 50%, increased the Vibrance, reduced the Saturation and added some Sharpening.
In CS4, I've: reduced the Noise, adjusted the Levels ("Increased Contrast 1" preset), reduced the Saturation and adjusted the Midtone Levels in Color Balance.
That was it, just minor adjustments as you can check in the final image.

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Mosteiro-da-Batalha-I-144401972
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Abandonado

0


The Story
December 2008. It has been over a month that I had discovered a very interesting spot. Near the Quinta da Atalaia, Seixal (where the PCP's Avante festival is held) there are a few abandoned ship yards in the Seixal bay. I discovered this spot almost by accident in a Portuguese photography forum's member site.
The first time I've been there, I was with my wife and I was simply scouting the place, finding how to get there, and having a feel of the area itself. These abandoned places are usually hangout places for homeless and junkies, so caution is advised. So that day I just looked at the outside of the place, took a couple pictures, and rescheduled a more detailed visit.
It happened in December of 2008 and this time I went alone. I parked the car near the bay and waited for the people that were there to left before I went in. I didn't know how abandoned this place really was so I went in with eyes on my back, listening to every possible noise that could alert me for some sort of danger.
There are quite a few abandoned ships (and buildings) in this place and I started taking some pictures of them. As the ships are abandoned in the bay, the ground is all muddy (and who knows what else) so there is an amount of risk involved. This ship wreck immediately caught my attention. The ship was broken in two pieces and the front piece is very small but with the wide angle it looks bigger. I took some shots of it and moved on to some other ship wrecks.
The evening was coming very fast and the light became too low. As I didn't took a tripod, the trip was over. "I will return another day", I was sure.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC

1/15 second
F/4.0
10 mm
250

Original Photo


Post Processing
This photo was my only choice from the ones I took that late afternoon. The idea was to convert it to black and white or sepia.
I imported the NEF file into Lightroom, aligned and cropped it to my like. Then I increased the Blacks and the Saturation on the Reds, Greens, Yellows and Oranges. Added some Fill Light, reduced the Luminance on the Blues to darken the sky a little and adjusted the White Balance to make it look more warm. Finally, I corrected the Purple Fringing by increasing the Blue Chromatic Aberration.
In CS3 I've done some Shadows & Highlights (10%/50%), reduced the Saturation by 5%, and done Auto Tone, Auto Contrast and Auto Colors. Then I converted it to Black & White with an Action from Manyk "Manyk's B&W Conversion" (you can find it here: http://manyk.deviantart.com/art/Manyk-BW-Conversion-29977377) and then applied the "Warm (27)" action (you can find this and other actions to simulate the effect of Gradient filters here: http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com). Finally, I added some strong Vignetting.
The choice of the Vignetting was made to compensate for the fact that the sky was completely "naked" (i.e. without any clouds) and the Sun had set behind the ship wreck.

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Abandonado-105150842
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Misty River I

0


The Story
It was a Sunday afternoon in the end of 2008's summer. I had finished lunch and was in my kitchen in Corroios (near Almada, Portugal) doing the dishes (check the
Bridge To Neverland photo story for more details)...
I arrived at the monument and sometimes I couldn't even see the bridge because of the fog. I took some photos from ground level and head straight to the top. From there the view was breathtaking. I took plenty of shots from the top and then returned back to the ground. In ground level I took a few more and this one was my favorite. I loved the amount of detail in it, the BUS crossing the bridge was great.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
AF-S NIKKOR 18-70mm 1:3.5-4.5G ED

1/320 second
F/8.0
48 mm
100

Original Photo


Post Processing
This photo was my first choice from the ones I took that afternoon. There was very little to do, basically it needed more contrast (typical in photos taken in fog situations) .
I imported the NEF file into Lightroom and done some Highlight Recovery and increased the Sharpening and the Blacks.
Looking to it now, the difference isn't that much. The issue was that, in the moment I processed it, I was still importing the NEF files directly into Lightroom and, as I mentioned before, Adobe software can't reproduce correctly the NEF files. This original version you see here (as all the original versions in my posts) is the result of a conversion to TIFF in ViewNX and it has the correct info from the original file.

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Misty-River-I-98580228
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Misty River II

0


The Story
It was a Sunday afternoon in the end of 2008's summer. I had finished lunch and was in my kitchen in Corroios (near Almada, Portugal) doing the dishes (check the
Bridge To Neverland photo story for more details)...
I arrived at the monument and sometimes I couldn't even see the bridge because of the fog. I took some photos from ground level and head straight to the top. From there the view was breathtaking. I mainly used the Sigma 10-20 to capture the scene but as I was in higher ground I also tried some shots with the 18-70. This photo was one of them. I tried to align the bridge towers to the thirds of the image to guide the eyes from the closer tower to the remainder of the bridge, ending in the fog. What I liked more about this shot was the amount of detail that was possible to capture, even in the fog.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
AF-S NIKKOR 18-70mm 1:3.5-4.5G ED

1/320 second
F/8.0
35 mm
100

Original Photo


Post Processing
This photo was my second choice from the ones I took that afternoon. There was very little to do, basically it needed more contrast (typical in photos taken in fog situations) .
I imported the NEF file into Lightroom and slightly straightened it. Then I've done some Highlight Recovery and increased the Sharpening and the Blacks.
That was it! Some times, all it takes is a minor adjustment.

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Misty-River-II-98584720
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Ascensor da Bica

0


The Story
May, 2009. We've been in Barcelona a couple of weeks before and I was fascinated with the old Barcelona neighborhood. There I decided that I had to go for a visit in old Lisboa as soon as possible. I had several options but I decided to go to Bairro Alto mainly because of this funicular.
Before this day I, as usual, explored the location in Flickr and Wiki to check for good spots. I already knew that there were two "Elevadores" (lifts) in Lisboa: Santa Justa and Glória. But until that day I never had checked to see if there were more. When I found out that there were two others I felt ashamed. How come I, born in Lisboa, forever in love with this city, could not know this?
In google maps/earth I located this one and found out that it connected the low area of Santos to the high area of Bairro Alto. So the course was set: I would park in Santos, take the funicular to Bairro Alto and would explore from there.
This funicular is very different from the other two I knew. In the bottom side, you pick it inside a building and then it starts to climb the hill in some characteristic Lisboa's street. We bought the ticket and got inside. It took a little bit before it started the trip, but then it was worthy. It's a very small trip and you're off to one of the more typical Lisboa neighborhoods: Bairro Alto. This place is also one of the favorite places for the teens to go out at night (I lost the count of how many times I've been there) .
In the end of the ride, we got off the funicular and my wife went to the shops while I started exploring the site. I took some shots of the funicular, from the rails, from the people around and them moved on to Bairro Alto itself.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
AF-S NIKKOR 18-70mm 1:3.5-4.5G ED

1/250 second
F/9.0
70 mm
400

Original Photo


Post Processing
This photo was the only one that I published from that day. I took plenty of photos in Bairro Alto but none satisfied me as this one. It had to be black and white but I tried something different: I left the characteristic yellow of the funicular as yellow and converted only the remainder of the image to black and white.
In Lightroom I've straightened and cropped it a bit and then applied the Mike Lao's "300 V1" preset (you can find it here: http://inside-lightroom.com/?page_id=11). The preset needed some adjustments after, so I reduced the Vignetting, increased the Contrast, the Blacks and the Clarity. Then I reduced the Saturation to the minimum on all colors except for the Yellows and Brushed all around the funicular where there were still traces of colors. This Brush was a -100% Saturation brush.
In CS4 I've selected all except the funicular itself and created a new layer with that selection. Then, I converted it to Black and White ("Darker" preset) and applied the "Warm (26)" action to warm it a little (you can find this and other actions to simulate the effect of Gradient filters here: http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com). Finally I've done: Auto Tone and Auto Contrast.
I usually publish my photos with 1024px in the largest size and use a great Photoshop action by Manyk to do the re-size.You can find it here: http://manyk.deviantart.com/art/Web-Sharpening-with-Photoshop-29038461

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Ascensor-da-Bica-122720360
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Navegadores

2


The Story
June, 2009. In this day my wife felt like going for a walk in Belém (check the
Museu de Marinha photo story for more details)...
We started by visiting the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos and then moved on to Padrão dos Descobrimentos. Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument to the Discoveries) is a monument that celebrates the Portuguese who took part in the Age of Discovery, or the Age of Exploration, of the 15th and 16th centuries. It is located on the estuary of the Tagus river in the Belém parish of Lisbon, Portugal, where ships departed to their often unknown destinations.
I started trying some angles that could take advantage of the beautiful skies that were that afternoon. First, I tried to get the lines in the pavement to guide the eyes to the monument and from there to the clouds. I took some photos with this perspective and then approached the monument and started exploring uncommon perspectives. As almost all the times I went there, there were a lot of tourists around the monument what make me point upper to crop them off. It was then that I realized this uncommon angle. The clouds appear to be an extension of the monument itself and gives us the idea that the navigators are contemplating (or fearing) them.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC

1/160 second
F/9.0
10 mm
100

Original Photo


Post Processing
This one was an almost ready photo as it came out of the camera.
There were two little details to address: that little bit of land in the lower right corner had to go and the colors would need a more cold and contrasted feel.
I imported the photo into Lightroom, cropped the right corner and applied an Auto Tone. It was better, but I needed to bring that sky even more. So I applied the Mike Lao's "300 V1" preset (you can find it here: http://inside-lightroom.com/?page_id=11) and the result was what I was looking for. In CS4 I've simply done: Auto Tone, Auto Contrast, Auto Color and Auto Levels.
I usually publish my photos with 1024px in the largest size and use a great Photoshop action by Manyk to do the re-size.You can find it here: http://manyk.deviantart.com/art/Web-Sharpening-with-Photoshop-29038461
I was quite satisfied with the result, which is a rare thing. :)

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Navegadores-124771032
Read more
 
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